Chaos and Badasses
by RazorFace
Summary: A year after events of Borderlands 2, new tyrant has arisen and had discovered a new Vault. That Vault hides something evil, what they have never seen before. Chaos starts to overwhelm Pandora, creatures disappears and Vault Key pieces have a strange effect on Zer0. They need to find all of those Vault Key pieces and the Vault, before it's too late. Let the chaos begin!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 - Stuck**

She didn't know where she was. She felt sharp pain on back of her head and gust of wind that made her feel cold. She slowly opened her eyes to see only darkness around her. She tried to stand up, but her bones felt like they were burning. Then she noticed something; She had no idea how she ended up like this and even worst: She didn't even know who she was. There where should have been memories, was nothing, only black hole of darkness. Panic started to crawl inside of her. She started to scream for help, but the sound of her words died in her throat. Then she started crying and tried to think what was going on.

Then she saw bright white light, that shined above her. Suddenly the warm feeling surrounded her and all coldness were gone. Her bones didn't burn anymore, when she tried to move and she didn't feel any pain. She stood up and watched amazed, as the light started to take a form. It looked like some kind of a circle around her, like a shield. She had no idea what was going on, but somehow she knew, that anything could never hurt her, when she was inside of that beautiful light. She looked down to her hands. Her left hand had some weird circular marks on it and they were glowing brighter than that light what surrounded her. She had white top and little dust on that, black jeans and black boots. She moved her white curly hair off her face, wiped her tears from her cheeks and started to explore her surroundings. There was sand and dust. A lot sand and dust. She walked over to the wall. Well, she thought it was a wall. It was muddy and hardened sand. There was nothing else than that, it surrounded her. Se looked up and saw moon, that glowed far away. Then a realization hit her; she was in a hole. Literally.

"Fuck!" It was the only word what came out of her mouth. At least it reflected her feelings well enough. She didn't remember how she ended up there (Well she had her doubts, that she had fallen and you don't need to be that smart to figure that out. But we can think, that she hit her head during the fall.), she didn't even remember her name and now she was stuck in some freaking hole.

She sat down and cursed about her situation in her mind. Now she just had to wait until someone would find her. Long silence was making her insane. What if no one was coming? What if no one wasn't even looking for her? Thinking like that made her feel sick. She laid down and tried to sleep. It was hard, but after a while she slowly drifted into the dream.

_She opened her eyes and saw blue sea next to her. She stood up and watched the water as it made little waves. It was beautiful. She was standing on an almost white and soft sand and her feet sinked bit on it. She could hear girly laugh somewhere far away. She moved slowly and tried to found that girl, but there was only sand and that beautiful sea. At that moment she felt so lonely. _

_All of a sudden she felt someone grabbing her wrist and let out a scream. She turned furiously, her heart pounding like crazy, and ready to fight what ever was against her. In front of her stood some black fuzzy figure. She was puzzled. Dark figure was so fuzzy so she couldn't see who or what it was. It was tall and maybe human. Her wrist was still on it hand. _

_"Who are you?" She asked calmly. _

_Figure didn't answer. It lowered its head, or it looked like that. She didn't know why, but it looked so sad. _

_She was going to say something, but then there was some weird sound. Like someone was speaking? She looked behind her but saw no one. Then, when she turned back that tall black figure was gone._

* * *

"Can you hear me?"

She opened her eyes and saw someone above her. It was .. Man? Suddenly she felt so mad. She would never know who or what that figure in her dream was.

"Ugh. Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep", she muttered and closed her eyes again._ How did that guy dare to interrupt my dream, _She thought sleepily. Then she heard a little and soft laugh from a new guy. He shaked gently her shoulder, trying to wake her entirely.

"I bet, that ground ain't the most comfortable place to sleep." He said amused.

She opened her eyes again. _Oh right, I'm HERE. _She looked up to man and gazed him. He was cute. He had dark curly hear, chocolate-brown eyes, black leather jacket and under it was gray shirt, then he had blue jeans and black sneakers. He stretched out his hand to help her up. She took it and felt so embarrassed about how she had behaved.

"Um. Yeah, thanks. Uhm.. Sorry about that. I was.. Tired?" Her mind was a mess. She could feel, as her face was getting hotter. _Fuck, that guy thinks im crazy, _She thought.

Man smiled. He looked like he was having fun. She blushed even more, when she saw him laughing at her.

"Nah, its okay." He said. He walked over to the ladder that was leaning on the sandy wall. He started to climb up, but on a middle he stopped. He turned his head and looked down at her raising his eyebrows. She just stood there looking.. Maybe a little dumb.

"Are you coming or what?" He asked while continued rising.

* * *

Couple minutes later, they both were out of the hole. Now she looked little bit confused. She must have been very blind, when she fell in there. There was nothing to cover it. Not any bushes or stitches or what ever some hunters covered their traps.

"That hole is approximately maybe 14 feet deep and you didn't even hurt yourself. By the way name is Keith." He said and smiled. "And you are?"

She didn't answer. She didn't know who she was. She felt Keith's curious gaze and sighed. "I don't know." She said

Keith frowned. "Then what do you know?"

_Uh, I might as well tell him, _She thought. "Well, I don't have no idea about who I am, or where I am. I don't have any memories about my life. I just woke up laying down there." She pointed over the hole. She scratched her head. Her hair long white hair looked gray, when they were full of sand.

"Amnesia?"

"Maybe."

They started walking. She didn't know where they were going, but still she followed him. Then suddenly Keith stopped and his face looked like he had realized something. "Did you happen to take a look in your pockets?" He asked

She watched confused at him. "No?" And then the expression on her face looked exactly the same than on Keith's face earlier. She stuffed her hands in her pockets of jeans. Then she felt something in her hand and took her hand out. It was paper.

"What is it?" Keith asked excited.

It was white little paper and on that was only one word; Alice.

"So.. Are you Alice?"

She glared the paper. She felt so dumb. "Okay. Can I ask, who the hell carries a tag where is only a NAME?"

Keith chuckled. "Maybe somehow you knew, that you're going to fall in a hole and made yourself a note."

She glared at him. Great. Well maybe it was her name. Who knows? "Okay. From now on my name is Alice. It's better, than being nameless."

* * *

They had walked for almost an hour. She had slept maybe four hours and felt tired. Sun burned her skin and made her sweat. She looked her surroundings. There was more dust, sand and cliffs.

"Where are we?"

"In Lynchwood. We are almost there."

_Lynchwood? That doesn't sound familiar. Uh, how it even could sound familiar, I don't have any memories, duh. Where are we even going?_

"This place looks like.. I don't know.. Dead?"

"Well this is Pandora. I think this is wasteland, but someone could call this home", Keith said and smiled sadly.

"You aren't from here, right?"

"Yeah. I come from planet, called Dionysus." He answered "I moved a few years ago and opened bar in Gunslinger's Corner. It's place where travellers like to bunk."

Finally they had reached their destination. Gunslinger's Corner was dusty street at the end of a mine tunnel near Main Street. A number of tightly packed buildings (One of the buildings was Keith's bar) line the street on each side, and an elevator at the end opens access to higher ground. Outside were only few grumpy looking men and one sad-looking woman, but otherwise it seemed kind of deserted. Above the Keith's door were a big sign with words: Bar & Motel. They went inside and Keith locked the door behind him. He walked over the bar and went other side.

"Are you hungry?" He asked while he took two bottles of beer off the shelf.

Alice nodded. At the same time her stomach made loud sound. Keith laughed and put one of beers to the table next to him. He kept the another one and went to the kitchen. Alice walked over the bar and took her beer. Then she tasted and tasted awful. She looked the label, what was side of the bottle. _Rakk Ale? Ugh.._

Keith's bar/motel looked very nice. Walls looked like they were made from mahogany. There was maybe 10 round tables. In corner there was 2 big leather sofas. Everything else (even a bar) was made from wood. Next to the bar were stairs to the upper floor. Sleeping area might be there. On the other side of the bar was door to the kitchen. She walked over there and opened the wooden door. Kitchen was a bit tiny. Other side of the room was sink, dish drying cabinet etc. Other side was fridge and table and couple of chairs. There was one big window too. She sat down on the other chair and watched as Keith brought her meal on the table. Mashed potatoes and sausages. As soon as she got the fork in her hand, she began to gobble her food.

"Try not to choke to your sausages." Keith laughed.

Alice felt like she hadn't eaten for a years. She pointed over him. "Outside. It looked like desert. There was only 3 guys and one girl. Why?" She asked curiously, after she had swallowed her food.

"Yeah.. Well last year this place was swarming bandits and maurauders. Now here is a new sheriff in town, who tries to populate Lynchwood." Keith went to the window and looked outside. "However, it appears to be escalating rather slowly."

He turned around and pointed to Alice's left hand "You know you are a siren, right?"

She looked down to her hand. Earlier in that hole it had glowed white light. Now there was blue circulas marks, like tattoos on it.

"I was just on a walk and saw some weird light coming from inside that hole. Then I quickly ran back here and took ladders with me." Keith started laughing, when he remembered how dumb that girl had been. He started to laugh even more when he saw bright red color on her face.

After Alice had finished, Keith showed her room to her. It was small, but she didn't care. There was small bed on the corner and other side was one big closet, and desk was in front of the window. It was enough for her. Then he showed her the showers. She felt excited. Finally she could wash all that freaking dirt and dust off her. She thanked him, but then she remembered something what she wanted to ask earlier.

"What happened to the first Sheriff of Lynchwood?"

"She died. Don't feel sorry for her, she was cruel bitch. I think she was a bit insane. Well she was Handsome Jack's girlfriend, so she had to be insane." He laughed again a little. "Now they both are finally gone."

She started to feel curious. _Handsome Jack? That name sounds so dumb.._ She thought.

"What happened?"

"Vault Hunters. They killed them. Thank god. Let's leave that story for tomorrow, we both need to rest."

"Wait!" He was about to leave, but Alice crabbed his hand and stopped him. She was too curious to leave that conversation to die like that.

"Who are the Vault Hunters?"

Keith was looking at somewhere far away, where she couldn't see and made a genuine smile.

"They are Heros."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1 - Stuck**

She didn't know where she was. She felt sharp pain on back of her head and gust of wind that made her feel cold. She slowly opened her eyes to see only darkness around her. She tried to stand up, but her bones felt like they were burning. Then she noticed something; She had no idea how she ended up like this and even worst: She didn't even know who she was. There where should have been memories, was nothing, only black hole of darkness. Panic started to crawl inside of her. She started to scream for help, but the sound of her words died in her throat. Then she started crying and tried to think what was going on.

Then she saw bright white light, that shined above her. Suddenly the warm feeling surrounded her and all coldness were gone. Her bones didn't burn anymore, when she tried to move and she didn't feel any pain. She stood up and watched amazed, as the light started to take a form. It looked like some kind of a circle around her, like a shield. She had no idea what was going on, but somehow she knew, that anything could never hurt her, when she was inside of that beautiful light. She looked down to her hands. Her left hand had some weird circular marks on it and they were glowing brighter than that light what surrounded her. She had white top and little dust on that, black jeans and black boots.

She moved her white curly hair off her face, wiped her tears from her cheeks and started to explore her surroundings. There was sand and dust. A lot sand and dust. She walked over to the wall. Well, she thought it was a wall. It was muddy and hardened sand. There was nothing else than that, it surrounded her. Se looked up and saw moon, that glowed far away. Then a realization hit her; she was in a hole. Literally.

"Fuck!" It was the only word what came out of her mouth. At least it reflected her feelings well enough. She didn't remember how she ended up there (Well she had her doubts, that she had fallen and you don't need to be that smart to figure that out. But we can think, that she hit her head during the fall.), she didn't even remember her name and now she was stuck in some freaking hole.

She sat down and cursed about her situation in her mind. Now she just had to wait until someone would find her. Long silence was making her insane. What if no one was coming? What if no one wasn't even looking for her? Thinking like that made her feel sick.

She laid down and tried to sleep. It was hard, but after a while she slowly drifted into the dream.

_She opened her eyes and saw blue sea next to her. She stood up and watched the water as it made little waves. It was beautiful. She was standing on an almost white and soft sand and her feet sinked bit on it. She could hear girly laugh somewhere far away. She moved slowly and tried to found that girl, but there was only sand and that beautiful sea. At that moment she felt so lonely. _

_All of a sudden she felt someone grabbing her wrist and let out a scream. She turned furiously, her heart pounding like crazy, and ready to fight what ever was against her. In front of her stood some black fuzzy figure. She was puzzled. Dark figure was so fuzzy so she couldn't see who or what it was. It was tall and maybe human. Her wrist was still on it hand. _

_"Who are you?" She asked calmly. _

_Figure didn't answer. It lowered its head, or it looked like that. She didn't know why, but it looked so sad. _

_She was going to say something, but then there was some weird sound. Like someone was speaking? She looked behind her but saw no one. Then, when she turned back that tall black figure was gone._

"Can you hear me?"

She opened her eyes and saw someone above her. It was .. Man?

Suddenly she felt so mad. She would never know who or what that figure in her dream was.

"Ugh. Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep", she muttered and closed her eyes again._ How did that guy dare to interrupt my dream, _She thought sleepily.

Then se heard a little and soft laugh from a new guy. He shaked gently her shoulder, trying to wake her entirely.

"I bet, that ground ain't the most comfortable place to sleep." He said amused.

She opened her eyes again. _Oh right, I'm HERE._

She looked up to man and gazed him. He was cute. He had dark curly hear, chocolate-brown eyes, black leather jacket and under it was gray shirt, then he had blue jeans and black sneakers. He stretched out his hand to help her up. She took it and felt so embarrassed about how she had behaved.

"Um. Yeah, thanks. Uhm.. Sorry about that. I was.. Tired?" Her mind was a mess. She could feel, as her face was getting hotter. _Fuck, that guy thinks im crazy, _She thought.

Man smiled. He looked like he was having fun. She blushed even more, when she saw him laughing at her.

"Nah, its okay." He said.

He walked over to the ladder that was leaning on the sandy wall. He started to climb up, but on a middle he stopped. He turned his head and looked down at her raising his eyebrows. She just stood there looking.. Maybe a little dumb.

"Are you coming or what?" He asked while continued rising.

Couple minutes later, they both were out of the hole. Now she looked little bit confused. She must have been very blind, when she fell in there. There was nothing to cover it. Not any bushes or stitches or what ever some hunters covered their traps.

"That hole is approximately maybe 14 feet deep and you didn't even hurt yourself. By the way name is Keith." He said and smiled. "And you are?"

She didn't answer. She didn't know who she was. She felt Keith's curious gaze and sighed.

"I don't know." She said

Keith frowned. "Then what do you know?"

_Uh, I might as well tell him, _She thought.

"Well, I don't have no idea about who I am, or where I am. I don't have any memories about my life. I just woke up laying down there." She pointed over the hole. She scratched her head. Her hair long white hair looked gray, when they were full of sand.

"Amnesia?"

"Maybe."

They started walking. She didn't know where they were going, but still she followed him. Then suddenly Keith stopped and his face looked like he had realized something.

"Did you happen to take a look in your pockets?"

She watched confused at him. "No?" And then the expression on her face looked exactly the same than on Keith's face earlier. She stuffed her hands in her pockets of jeans. Then she felt something in her hand and took her hand out. It was paper.

"What is it?" Keith asked excited.

It was white little paper and on that was only one word; Alice.

"So.. Are you Alice?"

She glared the paper. She felt so dumb.

"Okay. Can I ask, who the hell carries a tag where is only a NAME?"

Keith chuckled. "Maybe somehow you knew, that you're going to fall in a hole and made yourself a note."

She glared at him. Great. Well maybe it was her name. Who knows?

"Okay. From now on my name is Alice. It's better, than being nameless."

They had walked for almost an hour. She had slept maybe four hours and felt tired. Sun burned her skin and made her sweat. She looked her surroundings. There was more dust, sand and cliffs.

"Where are we?"

"In Lynchwood. We are almost there."

_Lynchwood? That doesn't sound familiar. Uh, how it even could sound familiar, I don't have any memories, duh. Where are we even going?_

"This place looks like.. I don't know.. Dead?"

"Well this is Pandora. I think this is wasteland, but someone could call this home", Keith said and smiled sadly.

"You aren't from here, right?"

"Yeah. I come from planet, called Dionysus." He answered "I moved a few years ago and opened bar in Gunslinger's Corner. It's place where travellers like to bunk."

Finally they had reached their destination. Gunslinger's Corner was dusty street at the end of a mine tunnel near Main Street. A number of tightly packed buildings (One of the buildings was Keith's bar) line the street on each side, and an elevator at the end opens access to higher ground. Outside were only few grumpy looking men and one sad-looking woman, but otherwise it seemed kind of deserted. Above the Keith's door were a big sign with words: Bar & Motel.

They went inside and Keith locked the door behind him. He walked over the bar and went other side.

"Are you hungry?" He asked while he took two bottles of beer off the shelf.

Alice nodded. At the same time her stomach made loud sound. Keith laughed and put one of beers to the table next to him. He kept the another one and went to the kitchen. Alice walked over the bar and took her beer. Then she tasted and tasted awful. She looked the label, what was side of the bottle. [Rakk Ale? Ugh..]

Keith's bar/motel looked very nice. Walls looked like they were made from mahogany. There was maybe 10 round tables. In corner there was 2 big leather sofas. Everything else (even a bar) was made from wood. Next to the bar were stairs to the upper floor. Sleeping area might be there. On the other side of the bar was door to the kitchen. She walked over there and opened the wooden door. Kitchen was a bit tiny. Other side of the room was sink, dish drying cabinet etc. Other side was fridge and table and couple of chairs. There was one big window too.

She sat down on the other chair and watched as Keith brought her meal on the table. Mashed potatoes and sausages. As soon as she got the fork in her hand, she began to gobble her food.

"Try not to choke to your sausages." Keith laughed.

Alice felt like she hadn't eaten for a years. She pointed over him.

"Outside. It looked like desert. There was only 3 guys and one girl. Why?" She asked curiously, after she had swallowed her food.

"Yeah.. Well last year this place was swarming bandits and maurauders. Now here is a new sheriff in town, who tries to populate Lynchwood." Keith went to the window and looked outside. "However, it appears to be escalating rather slowly."

He turned around and pointed to Alice's left hand "You know you are a siren, right?"

She looked down to her hand. Earlier in that hole it had glowed white light. Now there was blue circulas marks, like tattoos on it.

"I was just on a walk and saw some weird light coming from inside that hole. Then I quickly ran back here and took ladders with me." He started laughing when he remembered how dumb that girl had been. He started to laugh even more when he saw bright red color on her face.

After Alice had finished, Keith showed her room to her. It was small, but she didn't care. There was small bed on the corner and other side was one big closet, and desk was in front of the window. It was enough for her.

Then he showed her the showers. She felt excited. Finally she could wash all that freaking dirt and dust off her.

She thanked him, but then she remembered something what she wanted to ask earlier.

"What happened to the first Sheriff of Lynchwood?"

"She died. Don't feel sorry for her, she was cruel bitch. I think she was a bit insane. Well she was Handsome Jack's girlfriend, so she had to be insane." He laughed again a little. "Now they both are finally gone."

She started to feel curious. _Handsome Jack? That name sounds so dumb.._ She thought.

"What happened?"

"Vault Hunters. They killed them. Thank god. Let's leave that story for tomorrow, we both need to rest."

"Wait!" He was about to leave, but Alice crabbed his hand and stopped him. She was too curious to leave that conversation to die like that.

"Who are the Vault Hunters?"

Keith was looking at somewhere far away, where she couldn't see and made a genuine smile.

"They are Heros."

* * *

_**Eeend of the first chapter. Tell me guys what did you like!**_

**So, I have something to say now. This is my first fanfiction so please, be gentle. **

**Also, finnish is my mother language (I don't know is that even right word) **

**or something so there might be some mistakes of spelling etc.**

**Okay! So I would appreciate, if you guys tell what I did right and what I did wrong.**

**And one more thing: **

**I have have planned a few pairings to this story **

**Thanks to those who read this!**

**See ya Bitchees :)**

**-RazorFace**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 - The Assault**

_Alice was sitting on the snow white beach and watched as a foam-waves were washing the ashore. It was beautiful. And this time she didn't feel so lonely. She had her friends with her, except they couldn't hear or see her. But it didn't bother her. Everything was perfect right now and she was happy. She had piece and any bad things couldn't disturb her. There was nothing that could to break that moment. When she was truly listening, she could hear the soft laughter coming from somewhere far away. Like it was echoing from the other side of the sea. _

_She listened, as her friends were talking behind her. They were chatting and laughing. Angus was telling his stories and others listened him with interest. Then suddenly she heard some new and soft sound coming from their direction. She turned around to look at them and saw something in Emma's hands. She was holding a baby. Keith, brothers and Angus had gathered around her. Alice walked closer and looked at the beautiful little girl. She started to giggle, when Emma touched her nose. It was heart-warming moment. _

_Then she saw something strange. Next to Emma was some woman, who Alice didn't recognize. She had short, blonde hair and emerald-green eyes. She was looking at the baby too and had a tiny smile on her face. But it was very sad smile._

_"Who are you?" Alice asked, even though she knew that she couldn't get the answer. Nobody could hear or see her._

_But suddenly, when she asked the question, woman turned to look at her with more serious look. Alice was startled by the fact that someone even reacted to her voice._

_"That's not important right now. I got message to you." She said. Her voice was soft and sounded worried._

_Alice was confused. She was confused a lot nowadays. "What? From who?"_

_"That's not important either. Listen to me now. I can contact with you only in your dreams and we don't have much time."_

_Alice nodded to demonstrate her understanding. She saw as Keith and others faded in the air behind the woman._

_"If you don't do what I'm going to say, seven minutes after you wake up, you are going to die. We need to make sure that doesn't happen." She looked at Alice to make sure if she understood what she had just said. She didn't._

_Alice was puzzled. She had no idea what that woman was saying. She was going to die? [Who the hell is she? Alice thought. She didn't want to die. Not yet. She had been so confused earlier and now she started to think if she was going insane._

_"When you wake up, go to the rooftop and stick close with your friend." _

_Alice nodded. She had decided to trust this woman, though she didn't know why._

_"Then you need to find the Vault Hunters. Someone is going to open the Vault and you need to stop whoever it is."_

_"Why? Alice asked disconcerted._

_"The Vault Hunters defeated the Warrior and the Destroyer all ready", she added._

_A woman shook her head. "This Vault is different. It hides something evil." _

_Alice started to feel worried. Something evil was never a good thing. It was always the opposite of it._

_"What do you mean?" She asked._

_"If someone opens the Vault, everything is going to end._

Alice opened her eyes. She was laying on her bed and the first thing what she noticed was the smoke. Her whole room was filled with it. _Fuck_, she cursed in her mind and moved her blanked aside. Then she got up from bed and walked quickly to the door. When she opened it, the hot air burned her throat and lungs and stung her eyes. She walked slowly outside the room, while coughing. Hallway was filled with the almost black smoke. She saw the flames on downstairs and how it slowly approached the stairs.

_I need to get out of here..._ She thought, but then she remembered Keith.

"Keith!" She yelled and it made her cough even more. Maybe he was outside already. But what if he wasn't? She couldn't count on it. She walked closer to the stairs. The whole downstairs was on fire, except a little spot in front of the kitchen's door and the bar table, which was near the stairs.

"Keith!" She called again. This time the door opened a bit and Keith stepped out of the kitchen. He was covered in soot and dirt, but he looked relief of seeing, that she was okay.

Alice saw big flames behind him in the kitchen. He was stuck. He jumped over the flames to the bar table and walked slowly against it, closer to Alice. But all the sudden a burning piece of wall fell directly in front of him. It almost dropped him from the table. Alice let out a small yell. She wanted to run to help him, but she couldn't. Little spot on the floor had started to burn and the flames on the table got slowly closer and closer to Keith.

Alice was sure, that her friend was going to die, but then she felt a weird and cold breeze around her. She looked down to her left hand. Those circular marks on her hand had started to glow a white light. Then she knew what to do. She raised her hand and pointed Keith with it.

Keith watched confused as the light started to glow around him. He didn't feel as hot as earlier and the air was now more cleaner. The light began to form like a shield, what surrounded him.

"Go outside!" Alice yelled to him.

Keith shook his head. "Hell no! Out there is worse situation than here."

_What that supposed to mean?_ She thought.

Keith hesitated for a moment and then he slowly dropped himself to the burning floor. He was sure, that he was going to burn alive, but he didn't. He was amazed. Then he jogged through the flames to in front of Alice. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"I thought you were dead!" She cried against his chest.

"Well, I'm not." The glow around him had faded away. He looked over his shoulder, to the approaching flames. "At least not yet."

Alice backed away. "We need to go to the rooftop." She said.

Keith looked confused at her. Then he nodded and led her to the shower, which was on another side of the hallway. In other side of the dressing room was a big curtain and window behind it. He opened it a bit and Alice heard a weird noise from the outside.

"What is going on?" She asked.

Keith put his index finger to his lips to silence her and opened the window entirely. Noise became louder and Alice recognized the sound. They were gunshots.

Next to Keith's bar was another building. Directly in front of them, six feet away was a balcony, which had two chairs, one big round table and thin wooden railing.

Keith stood carefully on the windowsill and jumped to the railing. Then he went down on the floor and turned around. He leaned on the railing to help Alice to the other side, but then all the sudden he stepped back quickly. He put his finger to his lips again and pointed down to the street with his another hand.

Alice leaned against the sill and looked down. Between the buildings, 15 feet beneath them, were two men walking on the alley. They had black armors and they held rifles. Other one had a black helmet on his head and on its forehead was a large white letter 'B'. Another one had his own helmet in his other hand. They were talking, but Alice couldn't hear what they were saying.

After they had disappeared around the corner Alice lifted herself up on the sill. She looked down and felt a little dizzy when she did it. _Oh god. If I'm going to die, I'm going to kill that guy, _she thought. She looked at Keith, who was leaning towards her again. She swallowed nervously and the jumped on the railing. Her balance failed and she would have fallen to the ground and crushed her bones badly, if Keith wouldn't grab her hand. He held tightly in her hand and pulled her to the other side of the railing.

"Wow, that was close!" She said and laughed a little.

Keith raised his eyebrows. "You are welcome." He muttered.

She had three seconds ago almost died and now she was already laughing_. Weird girl…_ He thought.

Then he jumped on the table. As seen from the floor, the roof was seven feet above them, and on the table Keith lifted himself up easily. Then he helped Alice on the rooftop too.

Alice noticed immediately the weird looking chest opposite of them. She walked over and opened it. (Thought she didn't know how she did it.) Inside it was a couple grenades, bullet magazines and two guns. Other one was a normal pistol, but other one looked very odd.

"Are you kidding me? The first chest what you found, has a legendary weapon inside of it." Keith said nonplussed. He took the gun and looked it closely.

"What is it?" Alice asked. She had never seen a gun like that.

"It's the Hellfire, a legendary submachine gun, manufactured by Maliwan." He answered and handed it to Alice. "Be careful with it. It has very high fire rate."

Alice looked abashed at the gun.

"What that means?" She asked.

Keith raised his eyebrows. Was she serious? "Bullets have a chance to burn enemies. Was that clear enough?" He asked amused.

Alice glared at him. Then she crossed her arms and turned around. She boggled, when he saw all of a sudden the black figure in her field of vision. Man had a black helmet and armor, but it was little grayer, than those other's had. He was laying on the roof and aimed down to the street with his sniper rifle, four buildings away from them. Seven minutes had already passed, from the moment when woke up and she wasn't going to die throughout the day.

Keith noticed, that Alice raised her smg and aimed somewhere with it. She was pointing at Zer0.

"No, don't shoot!" He shouted and put his hand top of the gun, to lower it. "He is one of the Vault Hunters."

"Oh", she said and felt a bit sheepish.

* * *

Zer0 felt two persons approaching him from behind. They weren't the threat so he didn't pay attention to them. He wasn't in the mood to pay attention to anything. But unfortunately they had mission to accomplish. Unfortunately was a weird word in that sentence. Zer0 had always been that one who yearned for missions, and had been the first who had gone to fight whoever was against him. But something had changed. Maybe he was too used to sit back on Moxxxis or in HQ. Or maybe he had become too lazy to find new challenges.

Right now he was irritated of those two persons, who were standing behind him. He was aiming and counting those black armored bastards on the street, who had ruined his day.

"Zer0?" The other one asked. He didn't bother to answer.

"Fifteen on your east, / twenty-seven on your south, /and nine on your west."

Zer0 said.

"Okay, thanks, Zer0." Lilith said through his echo devise.

_You are very welcome. Now start to kill those guys, _he thought. He wanted to go home_. What the hell is wrong with me?_

"What?" The woman asked confused.

"I wasn't talking to you." Zer0 answered annoyed.

"Well, gee. Sorry", she muttered.

"Shut up for a while. / are you dumb, or can't you see? / I'm trying to focus."

Zer0 started to feel very annoyed of her.

After that Alice was pissed off.

"Excuse me? Who are you to call me dumb? And why the hell are you talking like that? It sounds stupid, you dick!"

Zer0 raised his eyebrows behind his helmet. Where did that come from? He had obviously made that girl to piss off. He didn't say anything. He got up and put his sniper rifle to his back. Then he turned to look at Keith, whose face had turned to bright red. He was totally embarrassed for his friend behavior. Then he turned his gaze at the girl. Her hair looked a little gray, when it was covered with dust. She was quite pretty behind all that soot.

An** !** appeared on his visor, when the realization hit him. This was the same girl, the siren, what they had been looking for.

"What a coincidence. / Fate is really confusing, / or perhaps it's luck", he thought out loud.

Keith frowned a bit. "What are you talking about?" He asked confused.

Alice felt like she had to bring out her feelings. She just couldn't understand that haiku. "Before you answer, can you please talk like normal person?" _Well, now I am rude.. What's wrong with me?_ She thought. Normally she wasn't like that and right now she wanted to apologize that ninja-looking guy.

Zer0 glared at her behind his visor. "You are very annoying, you know? And noisy."

Alice took everything what she had thought back. That guy was a dick.

"At least I'm not so freaking dumb to speak like that", She snapped.

"Do you never shut up?"

"Do you never stop being a dick?"

Keith had felt first a little embarrassing, but now he watched amused at this weird argument. They were arguing like an old married couple, even though they had just met.

"Oh god... I seriously hope that there were some misunderstandings and we weren't really looking for you..." Zer0 muttered.

That sparked Keith out of his dormancy. "What do you mean?" He asked.

Zer0 handed to him a wanted-poster of Alice. He watched it for a while and then handed it to Alice.

"Well, this explains a lot."

"How did you find me?" Alice asked.

"Angel located you. And don't know ask me how." Zer0 answered. He was still pretty annoyed about the situation. He started walking away from them and hoped that they wouldn't follow.

"Where are you going?" Alice asked.

"To help the others." He sighed hardly and then stopped. He turned back to look at them. _They are going to die if I leave them_, he thought and shook his head frustrated. "Are you coming or what?"

* * *

One black armored soldier screamed in horror, when Maya phaselocked him and then she shot him with her smg. There were two soldiers left and when she approached them, happened couple things. Other one ran away and squealed. Other one froze for a few seconds, until he noticed his escaping

companion and ran after him.

"What! Are you serious?" Maya whined. Finally, when there was something to kill, they all ran away like babies. It felt like frustrating torture to her. She walked over the battered barrel, which was next to the wall and kicked it frustrated. It flew high into air and then hit to the wall.

Maya winced, when she saw something over there where the barrel had just been. It revealed to be a body. A woman's body. She walked closer to it. Woman was very beautiful. She looked like sleeping angel, when she laid on the ground. Middle of her forehead was a gun hole, but there wasn't much blood. Then Maya noticed woman's stomach. It looked like she had been pregnant before she died. Noticing that made Maya angry. Who the hell dares to kill a pregnant woman?

"SMAASH!" Bick roared somewhere far away. Maybe second after that, Maya's eyes widened, when she saw one black armored soldier screaming and flying in the air above her. His flight ended, when he crashed through the window behind her. Three seconds later another soldier flew in the air, but he was little too high to hit the window. Instead of that, he smashed straight to the stony wall and after that he fell on the ground, very motionless. Then Brick appeared out of now where and ran over him. Maya seriously hoped, that the man was dead, and if he wasn't he should kill himself quickly... Brick grabbed him roughly and tossed him through the window. Body smashed nicely through it and slammed to the ground, limbs sticking out of the body at every direction.

"TOUCHDOWN!" He screamed excited and ran away laughing like psychopath.

Maya stood still. She wasn't sure what had just happened.

"That was... Odd?"

Then suddenly she heard a hissing sound from her echo device. Someone tried to contact, but something in the area interfered it.

"Maya? Are you there?" She heard Axton's fuzzy sound.

"I'm here, Ax. What is it?" She had bad feeling about this, like he was going to ask for help. Even though she didn't know why she thought this way. It was like she had one extra instinct right now. Then she heard a very weird noise. Like some lightning had struck on other side of the echo.

"Axton, where the hell are you? Is that a thunder?" Her ears started to hurt of all that noise.

"What? No? Kind of.. Fuck!"

Maya heard more lightning sounds after Axton had cursed. Next sound sounded like he was running.

"Okay Maya, we might need a little help!" He panted out of breath.

She knew it already. Axton wasn't that kind of guy who would run away from fight like that. And he wouldn't ran away from those black armored soldiers, because they were just like some scared babies. There was something going on.

"We are on Main Street and... Oh crap!"

The discussion ended in a small crash and then there was only silence.

_I_ _wonder where the Main Street is_ ... Maya thought.

* * *

Earlier everything had been too easy and now suddenly Axton, Gaige and Lilith had to seriously fight for their lives. After they had finished those blacksoldiers (Axton and Gaige called those black armored guy like that, because... Well they had black armors and they didn't know their real name.), five of some ridiculously big guys with huge hammers fell down from sky. Literally. They looked a bit same than blacksoldiers, but their armors and helmets were light gray colored and they were two times bigger than them. And when they hit with those hammers, it hurt like hell. Hammer's head made a huge shockwave and it kind of exploded when it touched somewhere. One of those giants had brushed Axton with that and then he had decided to leave this fight for someone else. He had ran for his life, and then had found Lilith fighting with two of those guys. Axton had escaped behind the dumpster and Gaige had followed.

Now they were squatting down in cover and watched as Lilith tried to beat those boulders. Her attempt failed several times. She tried to phasewalk behind of one of those things, but it had turned quickly around and almost smashed her with hammer. They were surprisingly fast, compared to their size. Then after ten minutes she gave up and retreated behind the dumpster next to Gaige. Now they all were squatting down.

"So... How do we call these guys?" Axton asked tiredly.

"Insanegiantshitbags?" Gaige suggested in frustration.

Lilith peeked over the dumpster at those Insanegiantshitbags. One of them had disappeared somewhere and the rest were slowly walking towards them. Gaige peeked too and didn't like of what she saw.

"We need to do something." She said nervously.

Axton looked at their surroundings.

"Okay. Lilith, you phasewalk in that building." He pointed at the building, which was behind those huge shitbags. "And then you wait until we get there."

"Wait, what? Why there?" Gaige asked confused. "You see those huge guys in front of that building? Are you insane?"

Axton shook his head. "Zer0 went there earlier, so we might get to the roof. I think we are safer up there."

"You think?" Gaige snorted. She didn't want to die, if Axton was wrong.

When Gaige turned to look back at Axton, all color from her face vanished. Her eyes were wide open in horror. Same expression appeared on Lilith's face too.

"We... we should just run..." Gaige recommended and backed away from him. All the sudden they both ran away and left Axton, who was very confused right now.

He felt that something was standing behind him, and he kind of knew who it would be. He slowly turned around, to prove that he had been right. One of the huge shitbags was standing in front of him. He took his rifle from his back and started to shoot recklessly that insane sized thing with it. It didn't make any effect. That guy's health didn't decrease at all.

"Oh crap..." he whispered and threw (but didn't know why...) his riffle on the ground.

Axton had only one option left. He deployed his Sabre Turret, but unfortunately something bad happened. Just when he has deployed the turret, the big shitbag lifted its hammer up into air and then smashed it. The turret broke into million pieces in front of his eyes. He cursed very loudly and missed the stone behind his legs. He fell to the ground on his ass and felt the nasty pain on his coccyx.

"Oh shitty fuckcraphell", He yelled.

The huge shitbag was approaching him. He took his pistol from the holster and tried shoot it in the head. He hit the jackpot, bull's eye, or whatever it is, but it wasn't enough.

"Weak spot! Where the hell is the weak spot?!" He screamed while continued the shooting.

Guy was now directly in front of Axton. It lifted its hammer up again, with both hands. Axton could imagine how his innards were going to fly in the air, when that piece of boulder was going to crush him with that ridiculous sized hammer.

But then Axton heard a deafening sound, which arched his ears. The sound came quite obviously from sniper rifle. The bullet hit the neck of the shitbag and flew straight through it. Surprisingly it worked very well. Piece of boulder's head popped away from his own body, and flew into air.

"Feel it!" Mordecai's voice shouted through the echo. "Agues I found the weak spot." He enthused.

"Yeah agues..."

* * *

Lilith and Gaige were fighting with one of the shitbags. It tried to hit Lilith with hammer, but she phasewalked out of the way. She tried to shoot it to the neck with her smg, but failed. It plunged forward to her, his hammer lifted up. She disappeared, when it tried to crush her and then focused to the other target and started to charge at Gaige. It screamed like animal, which made Gaige to feel chills on her bag.

"DAAMN!" Gaige screamed, when she jumped out of the hammer's way.

She raised her robotic arm and deployed Deathtrap next to her. It started to shoot lasers at the enemy and then suddenly (and almost accidently) the laser hit the neck of that thing and cut the head off. The head fell to the ground and two second later the body followed behind.

"Hell yes!" She shouted excited.

Then suddenly she heard a sound, like something had swung behind her. She turned quickly around and saw the head of the hammer approaching her fast as lightning. But then, when it should had hit her, the big, white and glowing shield appeared around her. She turned around to see who had done that. On front door of the house (where Axton wanted to go earlier) was standing a woman, who had her hand raised and pointed Gaige with it. She was beautiful, even though she had dust all over her. Woman smiled in relief, when she noticed her success of saving Gaige. Zer0 and some random guy were standing next to her.

Gaige smiled and nodded to thank the woman. She turned to look back to the shitbag behind her and saw as it suddenly flew into air and locked into a purple orb. It started to scream in horror, until a large fire burst in the orb killed it. The body fell to the ground next to that, which Gaige had killed and Maya smiled pleased behind it.

"Sup?" She asked.

"Three left." Gaige whispered thoughtfully. She looked around to find the rest of the shitbags. Brick and Salvador were fighting with one. Brick was punching and slamming it and Salvador was gunzerking it. It grew tired pretty quickly and soon it fell on the ground.

"Okay, two left."

One of them was walking closer to her and other was standing next to the dumpster. She looked as the random guy was jogged next to her.

"Hello", he said and smiled happily, like there was nothing deadly walking closer to him. He was cute. He had dark, short and curly hair, brown eyes and friendly-looking face. "I'm Keith, how are you?" He asked.

Keith leaned over the ground and grabbed the hammer on it. He held it in his both hands and swung it a bit. It looked heavy, but it was kind of lightweight after all.

"This looks nice", he muttered and swung it a bit more.

Angry looking gray armored boulder walked closer to them and didn't have its hammer. It stopped in front of Keith and pointed furious the hammer in his hand. Gaige stepped back, in mind that this poor man would be soon a puddle of blood and visceral soup on the ground.

"This belongs to you, does it?" Keith asked and smirked. "Well it doesn't anymore."

He swung the hammer hard and hit the shitbag with it. Piece of boulder flew into air and smashed to the wall. It fell to the ground very motionless, and suddenly its head popped off its body. That made Gaige laugh so hard, that she found it difficult to breathe. Apparently every time, when shitbags died, their head separated from their bodies, and it was hilarious.

"This thing is awesome!" Keith enthused and looked amazed at the hammer.

"Be careful with that thing." He heard a familiar voice behind him.

He turned around and saw Jerry. He had couple wounds on his face, but otherwise he looked to be alright.

"Where have you been?" Keith asked. He noticed that Angus and John weren't with Jerry.

"Just chilling and killing somewhere." Man answered. He didn't look concern of the shitbags at all.

All three of them turned to look at the last Insanegiantshitbags who was standing dumbly next to the dumpster. It just stood there and waved its hammer like it was some kind of toy. Jerry took his pistol from the holster and shot it right in the head.

"Dumbass." He muttered.

"Jerry!" Alice screamed relieved. She ran over them and hugged him tightly.

"Where is your brother? What about Emma and Angus?" She asked worried, when she backed away from him.

"I dunno."

That wasn't good at all. Angus and John could take care of their selves, but what about Emma.

"We need to find Emma..." She said quietly.

Maya walked next to Alice.

"Is Emma pregnant?" She asked carefully. She hoped, that the answer could be no.

Alice eyes widened and her expression got brighter. "Yes! Do you know where she is?

Maya sighed and shook her head sadly. "Kind of... She... uh..." She tried to find the right words. Emma was apparently good friend with this lovely woman, and she didn't want to crush her heart. "She passed away." She finally said softly.

Expression on Alice's face changed quickly. Tears started to fall and she cried out loud. Keith grabbed her to hug and held her for a moment. Everyone on the area were silent and looked at the crying woman. Silence broke from a woman's sound:

"Good job Vault Hunters, Good job. You defeated gloriously my blacksoldiers (that point made Axton and Gaige laugh a little) and my bonebreakers. I suppose I underestimated you this time."

Voice, which obviously belonged to woman, came from the big speaker inside of the building, where Zer0, Alice and Keith had come from. They all walked inside to hear better.

"But unfortunately to you, this was just a test. Now... You apparently found my wanted posters of you and you might think why I am doing this. Well, I got the answer. I just don't like you, Vault Hunters. You have always been ludicrously in someone's way, so I thought that I should just remove you from existence. So, get dead or I kill you. And Alice. We will meet soon enough. Now, my whitestrikers are going to do the hard work for their Captain. Good bye."

All of them looked at each other confused.

"What are whitestrikers?" Mordecai asked.

They all were thinking the same thing. They got their answer, when they walked outside. In front of them were several white armored guys, with helmets and they had rocket launchers in their hands. Alice didn't know why but, she had a bad feeling of those guys. Whitestriker stood still and pointed their launchers at them.

"I think they are the badass version, of blacksoldiers." Gaige whispered to Axton.

Straight after that one of them fired with the launcher at Gaige. Alice creates a shield around her again, but the rocked almost flew through it. Shield just slowed it, but Gaige managed to jump out of the way.

"What the-.." Alice cut her sentence to run away from other rocket.

Then the other whitestrikers started to fire too. Vault Hunters started to run separate ways. Alice followed Keith and Jerry, who were running away from the area. Some of the whitestrikers ran after them and they were fast. Suddenly Alice stumbled over a stone and fell to the ground. Two of the whitestrikes stopped next to her, when the other two continued their running.

Other one raised his rocked launcher and pointed her head with it.

"Wait, Captain wanted her alive." Other said.

One, who was pointing at Alice didn't lower his gun. He was just about to say something, when a blue blade appeared from his stomach. He looked down confused, like he didn't understand that someone had stabbed him from behind. He fell on the ground and Alice saw Zer0 standing behind him, his sword in his hand. Other whitestriker raised his rocked launcher and fired at Zer0 with it. Alice yelped out loud, but then the rocket flew straight trough him and his figure faded away. Then he appeared behind the whitestriker and sliced his head off, before he could realize what had happened.

"That wasn't even hard /... Oh fuck it." He muttered. Everything was too easy nowadays. Then he pulled to stand Alice up.

"Thanks", she said embarrassed. She thought of everything, what she had said earlier to him and felt a little stupid. Then she noticed that they were back at the Gunslinger's Corner.

Suddenly Lilith appeared next to them. She had a little blood on her face.

"We should get back to Sanctuary." She just said.

Zer0 nodded to her and Alice saw, as Keith and Jerry jogged over them.

"You just left me alone with those guys." Alice said accusingly to Keith.

He just chuckled. "At least that Prince Charming saved you." He pointed at Zer0.

Zer0 just shook his head in frustration. Axton was right, he was a babysitter.

"We should mov-.." Jerry was interrupted by a gunshot. Bullet hole appeared in his forehead and he fell motionless to the ground.

"NO!" Alice screamed. She squatted next to her dead friend and cried a loud. Then she heard a feminine laughing behind her, which belonged to same person who had spoke through the speakers. She turned around to face the the shooter. Woman stood next to the corner of building behind her and laughed like the psychopath. Some men could say that she was hot. She had her black hair on ponytail and her dark skin-tight clothes made her skin look very pale. (Well, she looked a little bit like Steele, except with her hair color and face.) She had dark make up and her lipstick was almost black. She rolled a revolver in his hands.

"Well crap. I have never been good with guns." Captain looked very amused about Alice's rage. "If any of this makes you feel better, I aimed at you."

"You piece of shit!" Alice screamed enraged. She raised up her smg and pointed the woman with it. When she pulled the trigger, her flaming bullets didn't make any effect against the Captain's shield. She only started to laugh even more. She finally stopped, when Alice was out of bullets. She made a smug smile and then her face turned more serious.

"You have something what belongs to me, and I want it back." She finally said.

"Fuck you!" Alice hissed angrily. She was so furious, that she couldn't even cry.

"No, no, no, my dear. Don't use that kind of tone on me. If you don't do what I say, I will feed your friends to skags. They are very, very hungry on this time of year." Captain said and made tiny demanded smile.

Alice turned to look at the Vault Hunters and Keith. They were surrounded by several whitestriker, who were pointing at them with their rocket launchers and made them lower their weapons. Brick, Maya, Salvador, Mordecai and Axton were behind her, captured a little further away. Axton was laying on the ground

unconsciously and the others were covered in blood and several wounds.

She was stuck in this situation. She didn't know if her sirens-powers were powerful enough to protect all the Vault Hunters. She couldn't take that kind of a risk. She lowered her gun and turned to look back at the woman.

"Give it to me", she commanded.

Alice was still pissed off and wanted to kill that bitch, but now she felt a little confused too.

"I don't know what you are talking about." She answered. She didn't lie. She had no idea what was going on and who that woman was, but the Captain obviously knew her, and not in a good way.

Her words made Captain angry. Her behavior changed from calm to choleric and she hit Alice on the head with her revolver. Alice fell on the ground and felt dizzy.

"Don't touch her!" Keith yelled.

Zer0 threw out his sword and raised it towards the Captain. Almost every whitestriker stepped forward and pointed their rocket launchers to his head.

"Put down your weapon or we blow your brains out", one of them commanded.

Alice looked at him and made a small and sad smile. "I'm okay", she whispered to him.

Now she was lying. She wasn't okay. She was fucked up. Her head felt like it was exploding and she couldn't even stand up.

Captain tilted her head and looked at Zer0 curiously, when he slowly lowered his sword. "I underestimated badly you Vault Hunters earlier, but I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'll deal with you later", she just said and turned back to Alice. She raised her revolver and pointed her to head with it.

"I count to three and if you don't tell me where my Weapon is I'm going to kill you and all your friends. Do we have a deal?"

Alice felt horrible. She had no idea, what that woman was talking about and now the Vault Hunters were in this situation because of her.

"1..."

She saw as Lilith and Keith watching in horror at her. That made her smile a little. At least they cared.

"2..."

"She doesn't have her memories!" Lilith shouted all the sudden.

Captain raised her eyebrows and lowered her gun a bit. Her face looked like she was seriously thinking about something and then she just shrugged. "Well, that's a shame."

She raised her revolver again and put her finger on the trigger. Alice closed her eyes. She was sorry for the Vault Hunters. _This is all my fault_, she thought. She felt the tears flowing down her cheeks. _Where is that BANG? Is she going to wait forever?_

She opened her eyes again. The gun was gone, and so was the Captain. Whitestrikers had vanished too. Then she realized that she wasn't on the Lynchwood anymore.

"Are you okay?" She heard a familiar voice behind her. She turned around and saw Zer0 standing next to her.

She was confused. Just a second ago she had been looking at death straight in the eye and now she was here with the Vault Hunters.

"Yeah... Where are we? In heaven?" She knew that it sounded ridiculous, but she had to ask.

Zer0 chuckled softly. "In heaven? We haven't reached that far yet."

Alice saw a normal humans walking on the street and normal looking buildings around her. Above her was a big sing with letters Z, E and D. Then she turned to look inquiringly at Zer0.

"Welcome to Sanctuary", he said. A smiling emoticon appeared on his visor.

* * *

In Lynchwood, few seconds ago, when the Vault Hunters had teleported to Sanctuary a bird sat down on a windowsill. It watched at the Captain who fumed from rage, after her victims had vanished into air. Whitestrikers were trembling with fear when she shot one of them in the head. Bird shook her head, confused of Captains behavior. Sometimes humans were more like animals then animals themselves. Then the bird looked up and saw a dark figure on the roof of one house. The figure was a man whose black mask could be seen behind his dark hood. He had been watching the actions between the Vault Hunters and Captain, until the Hunters had vanished. Bird rose into the air from the sill and flew closer to the masked man. She landed on his shoulder and pushed excited her head to his neck. Man petted the bird's head softly.

**Let's go to find them,** bird heard his low voice in her head.

Bird knew what that meant. She knew this man very well, to know that the Vault Hunter's disappearance predicted something bad. It meant much of blood and death.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – Games and Changes**

Alice had now lived in Sanctuary for two weeks. The Vault Hunters and Crimson Raiders had welcomed her and Keith warm-hearted to their home. Alice spent her nights with girls in their apartment and Keith with boys. They could live with them for free and they didn't even need to pay for their food, except in Moxxxis of course. On that time she had familiarized with them a lot better. She even learned, that Keith and Lilith were childhood friends together. Now she knew almost everything of them, except for Zer0. He was still a mystery. But she had noticed on thing. He didn't speak in haiku anymore, at least not that much. She remembered how Maya had asked about it two days ago. Zer0 had said something to Axton and had dropped his haiku somewhere.

"Zer0, why don't you speak in haiku?" She had asked.

Zer0 had just shrugged. "Alice doesn't understand me when I talk like that", he had answered.

That had made Alice to blush hard. Salvador had noticed that and had made fun of her a whole day. But in later that evening she had realized something. That cold-hearted assassin was actually very gentle and caring personality. He hadn't spoken in haiku after Alice had mentioned about it.

Now she had new friends and place what she could call home. Sometimes they left to perform a missions, but nothing big had happened for a long time. Even that bitchy Captain had left them alone. That was probably caused by the fact, that she didn't know where Sanctuary was located, so she couldn't get access to them.

They had even found some information of her. Her full name was Bérénice Mauriac. She was respected captain from French military and had moved from Earth ten years ago. She came to Pandora in innocent reasons to seek for eridium, but after a while she heard what it could do to sirens. Then she started to experiment it. She tried to combine it with humans, but something went horribly wrong. That was how she created bonebreakers. She removed almost every feeling away from them and created maniac animals. After that she created whitestrikers. This time her experiments were succesful. She used less eridium and made them stronger and much faster, than normal humans. Unfortunately for her they didn't have any siren powers, but it was enough for her. Then she paid to other companies to help her. When Handsome Jack was in charge, she was unable to persuade Hyperion to join her. But with her associates help she was finally able to create her ultimate weapon, the Disaster. With her new weapon and her army she betrayed the other companies and destroyed them one by one. Her associate's soldiers started to scare her and she gave them a chance to choose; Join her or die. They obviously chose the first option and after that their new name was blacksoldiers. For a many years everything went well, until she lost the Disaster and she apparently thought, that Alice had it. Unfortunately Alice couldn't remember anything.

That brings us to our next problem; who is Alice? She tried to search information of herself, but couldn't find anything. Like she didn't even existed. That made her depressed. Angel promised to her to help her, but she didn't find anything either. Then Alice tried to find the woman, who she had seen in her dream, but it was dead-end too. Then she gave up.

Girl's building was more like motel, than an apartment. They all had their own rooms, where they could live in piece. Alice's room was nice. She had big bed, little wardrobe, own computer on table, big bookshelf, which was full of books.. She even had her own shower. She had anything what she could wish for.

Now she was standing in her shower and looked herself in the mirror. She looked to vulnerable, and she didn't like it. She took scissors in her hand and hesitated for a moment. If she had a new life, she could just change with it too. She cut one thin tress of and watched how it fell down on sink. She sighed heavily.

"Well, what the hell..." She muttered and continued the cutting.

* * *

Salvador, Axton, Brick and Mordecai were at Moxxxi's and Lilith, Angel and Tannis were on HQ's upstairs, in computer room. (Or what ever it's called) After Alice had told them about her dream, they had immediately started looking for a Vault.

Maya, Keith, Zer0 and Gaige were on downstairs sitting in silence, bored as hell. When all creatures had reduced for some strange reason, there wasn't much to do anymore. And no one had answers. Tannis suspected, that the cause might be the Vault. If it was truly like that, what the woman in Alice's dream had told, it could affect somehow to animals, and maybe even humans. That thought sounded scary. In that case, they should keep the Vault closed, in every cost.

Suddenly an idea flashed in Gaige's mind.

"Let's play the Truth or Dare!" She suggested excited.

Others in the room uttered grudgingly and tried to crawl out of the situation (figuratively speaking), but after Gaige had insisted for a ten minutes, they gave up. They gathered middle of the room and sat down, forming a ring. Gaige took a bottle of Rakk Ale and put in middle of the ring.

"I start", she commanded and everyone nodded for agreement. She seemed to be the only one who was at least a little excited of the game. She rolled the bottle and it began to spin furiously. Finally it stopped and its head pointed at Maya.

"Truth or dare, Maya?" Gaige asked.

Maya thought for a while. "...Dare", she answered. She started to regret her decision immediately.

"Okay, lets see. You need to do something fun… uh… Wait, I got it!" An evil smirk grew on her face, and Maya didn't like it at all. "Go to Moxxxis and take your shirt off."

Maya's eyes widened and the expression on her face merely reflected the rage. "WHAT?" NO FUCKING WAY! I'm not going to-.."

"Then you lose." Gaige interrupted her.

Her face looked like she was going to die. Then she slowly rose up and walked outside, without saying anything. Keith looked confused at Zer0.

"What do you think? Is she going to do that?" He asked to Zer0.

Zer0 just shrugged his shoulders. That woman was able to do almost anything and when she decided to do something, she actually did it. A few minutes later she came back and her face was colored with bright red. She sat back in the circle and felt the burning gaze of others.

"Next time I choose the truth", she muttered, when the redness started to fade on her face.

Keith's eyes widened and Gaige started to laugh madly.

"You seriously did it?" Keith asked in disbelief.

The redness came back and now it was even brighter. "Let's just play", she said quickly.

She rolled the bottle and when the spinning ended, the bottle pointed at Zer0.

"Truth or dare?" Maya asked. She thought, that she knew the answer already. Zer0 wouldn't choose the truth, he wouldn't tell anything of himself. But this time she was wrong.

"Truth." He answered calmly.

The answer surprised Maya. "What? Are you sure?"

Assassin just nodded and waited calmly for the question.

"Okay… Uh… I wasn't prepared to this… What color your eyes are?" She asked finally. She didn't know why, but she needed to ask something about his look.

"Blue."

That somehow surprised her even more. She had expected something a little different kind of color.

"NO! NO, NO, NO, NO! You should ask is he some kind of robot, or alien or why he has only four fingers, but then you ruined everything!" Gaige screamed.

Maya shook her head frustrated. "Shut it, Gaige." She turned back to look at Zer0. "What kind of blue?"

Zer0 tilted his head a bit. That was weird question. What kind of blue? He thought it for a moment, and tried not to pay attention to Gaige, who was screaming in the background.

"Dark blue..? I don't know… Like sapphire maybe." He said thoughtfully. He hadn't ever thought like that of his eyes. He never had to.

"OH GOD! I WANNA DIE!" Gaige was still screaming.

First thing what Alice heard, when she came inside of HQ was Gaige's scream. In that two weeks, what she had spent with them, she had learned, that if someone screamed, it didn't mean almost anything. Someone was just pissed off or drunk, and there was nothing to worry about. Now she saw those four Vault Hunters sitting in circle, Gaige screaming like maniac, Zer0 shaking his head, Maya looking frustrated and Keith just sat there like nothing was going on.

"What is going on?" She asked.

"Zer0 was just about to tell us who or what he really is and that Maya ruined everything." Gaige answered pissed off.

Zer0 shook his head again. "No I wasn't." He said and then an ! appeared on his visor, when he noticed Alice's new style.

"Yes you-.. Whoa! Nice hair, Alice!" Gaige said, when she turned to look at her.

Alice had seriously cut her hair. Now her white hair reached almost to her shoulders, and it didn't look so curly anymore. They looked like she had backcombed them a bit. Her shorter bangs were hanging on her face and hided her left eye behind them. Her make-up was little darker too. She had black military boots, black, ripped and tight jeans, white top and dark gray vest on it.

"You look nice", Maya said and rose up to see her closer.

"Do I? I Wanted something new and fresh.." She said. She had thought, that she would look super dumb with her new look, but apparently her friends thought otherwise.

"You look like a rock 'n roll and punk the same time", Gaige said excitedly.

Keith chuckled and stood up next to Maya. "I need a drink. Are you coming?" He asked.

Maya nodded and they left the HQ. Gaige, Zer0 and Alice followed behind.

"That game ended too soon." Gaige muttered.

* * *

In Moxxxis they sat down to table, which was next to Mordecai's, Axton's and Brick's table. Salvador was sitting alone in front if the bar and was again depressed. Moxxi had apparently gave up on trying to make him feel better. Mordecai was drunk as hell, and Brick was laughing to Axton, who had told some kind of a joke to him.

"Salvador is so sad all the time", Alice said sadly.

Maya nodded. "He has nothing to kill anymore. Apparently it has effected to all of us. You don't even want to kill anything anymore." She said and pointed to Zer0.

Zer0 shook his head. "That's not true."

Gaige raised her eyebrows and laughed lazily. "Don't lie to us. We all have changed. Maya, you are drinking whole time. You drink almost as much as Mordecai."

Mordecai heard her words and snorted. "I don't drink. Drinking is bad… I don't have a drinking problem!" He slurred.

Gaige looked at him and frowned. "No one said that you have a problem." She said a bit amused.

Mordecai tilted his head. He looked so stupid, when he was hammered like that. "What? Well, I don't." He said and turned angrily around.

Gaige just shrugged and let him be. "Anyway, we all changed. Keith has become as stupid as Axton."

On that point Axton glared at her from another table. She continued, without paying attention to him.

"Then we have Salvador. And you Alice! You suddenly cut your hair and change your style."

"Is that a bad thing?" Alice asked confused.

"No. Maybe. I don't know. But I haven't noticed any change on Axton and Brick. Not yet."

Maya laughed a little. "Don't forget you. You are screaming all the time."

"What if the reason is the Vault?" Zer0 asked suddenly. They all turned to look at him with interrogative looks on their face.

"There isn't almost anything to kill anymore, but what if that's not the reason of our behavior? I mean… If the Vault really is like what the woman said in Alice's dream.. What the Vault is somehow changing us?"

They looked at each other worried. If that was true, they needed to find the Vault, and fast.

* * *

Angel was standing in HQ's upstairs, next to their computer-table. Every lamp were closed and the only source of light was the computer. Clock was five in am, and she couldn't sleep. Finding the Vault in Pandora had become to obsession to her and she tried desperately to find even a little hint of it. But every time, when she thought that she had found something, it revealed to be dead-end. She couldn't help with Alice's problem, so she had to do something. She didn't know what to do anymore. She had played almost every card what she had. She couldn't find anything about the Vault on her own, so now she wanted use the last opinion, what she had. She was going to hack inside of Captain's database, with using her siren powers. Captain had to know something, she was sure of it. She found the files, without even using her powers, but then the firewall and every access codes appeared on the screen.

"Executing phase shift", she whispered and closed her eyes. She saw a several blue numbers and letters sliding down in her mind, in black background. She opened her eyes and saw, as the computer was loading all files to the computer from Captain's database. When the loading was finally done she felt excited. She selected the right folder and all files appeared one on the others on hologram screen.

"Okay let's find the Vault." She thought out loud. She closed her eyes again and focused on the word 'Vault'. When she opened her eyes she saw at least five files, which told something about the Vault. There were pictures in one. She opened the file and the pictures popped in front of her. There was a picture of creatures, which looked a bit like skags, but they were black and some kind of a black thing, like smoke or something was covering them. In other picture there were dead trees and grass. They were covered with that same black thing, than those skags. Then there was the sky. It was deep black and the sun was red as blood.

"What the…"

She moved to next picture. There were bodies laying on the black ground, which were covered with that black stuff too. They were like black and white pictures, but still they weren't.

"What is this?" She whispered to herself. She didn't recognize that place, but still the files show, that they were from Pandora. Then she chose to leave the pictures alone and went to look at some echo logs. When he pressed the play, she heard a woman's voice, which obviously belonged to Captain.

_"I have never seen anything like this. My father had searched this Vault for his whole life, and now I might found it. I'm not sure, though. But there something going on in that area. I don't know what that is, but every my man had died when they left there. Apparently all animals can survive better in there. I haven't found the Vault yet, but I'm sure, that it's here. I just can't get access to it, because I'm not animal… Aaargh, god damn, this is so frustrating. If I just would have Disaster, I wouldn't have this kind of problems, but that fucking bitch stole it. Now I just need to wait those freaking suits, so I can walk into that god damn cave on my own."_

"Interesting.." Angel muttered. She pressed the next echo.

_"Uh.. We find some new problems. First of all, my suits weren't that good after all. One of my blacksoldiers got dead, even when he had his suit on… So now we don't even know HOW to get down there. This is fucked up. If we can't get down there, we never find the Vault. If I'm right, and usually I am, The cave is just the door to that place where that annoying Vault is located. God, we haven't found even any Vault Key parts… My best technologies went to Disaster, so I can't even built convenient robot."_

The echo ended and left Angel confused. Where the hell was that cave… Apparently it wasn't anywhere in map, so now she had to start searching for caves somehow. That was just wonderful.

Then suddenly she found a file, which was uploaded on a half hour ago. Its title was 'Vault Key'. She opened it at there was some pin point location in Terramorphous Peak.

"Holy crap!" She shouted excited. She had just found the location of the first part of Vault Key. But unfortunately Captain had found it too.

"Darn, I need to wake everyone."

* * *

Some old plastered dosser was sitting his chair in front of the bar table, in tiny pub, on Frostburn Canyon. He was sipping his eight mug of whiskey and listened how two drunken youngsters next to him were telling horror stories to each other. They were annoying kids. Another one was stupid as frayed boot and other was cocky bastard, who thought, that he owned the whole world. Indignant bartender was losing his mind with those two. That cocky one mocked and teased him all the time and he was too kind to banish them out of his pub. There was one old guy too, who was passed out and on a corner was sitting two some kind of soldiers.

It was very silent and boring day to old dosser. He didn't have his own home, so he traveled a lot. It wasn't like he was too poor to live somewhere. It was just a lifestyle to him and he liked his life on that way. But sometimes it was just too boring. On those days he left to the bar to watch tv and drink a little. Usually his drinking didn't stay that little and sometimes he was the cause of bar fights. This day wasn't his lucky day. He had come to that pub to watch tv and then he head, that the tv was broken. So now he just sat there, while doing nothing. At that moment his greatest wish was, that someone would step through that god damn door and make his day a little more interesting. And suddenly his wish came true.

Man who was dressed in black, with bird on his shoulder stepped through the door. He was a weird-looking guy. He had a black and long coat with a big hood and his face was covered with mask. He looked like a normal guy, but with that mask and when he had his hood on, he looked really creepy. The mask was black, but on the point where his eyes were, there were white lines, which started on mask's forehead and ended on the bottom of the jaw. With those lines, his mask made him look very motionless. He had two some kind of swords, in their sheaths, on his back.

Everyone in the bar turned to look at the stranger, when he walked slowly over to the bar. Finally even those youngsters were quiet.

"I should have lived my life healthily… 'Cause, if you are the Death, I'm screwed." The old dosser muttered.

The stranger walked over him and looked at him. Or at least it looked like he had looked at him. In his opinion, the man looked a little confused of his words.

"Do you need something? Maybe some Rakk Ale?" The bartender asked.

Man didn't answer. He just pick up the paper from his pocket and put it on the table. It was a picture of some girl. Dosser recognized the girl immediately. She was the new Vault Hunter. He had seen the girl, when the Vault Hunters had performed some mission, on Frostburn Canyon.

Bartender frowned a bit. "Uh.. Are you looking for that girl? Because, I have no idea who she is."

The youngsters shook their heads to show, that they didn't know either.

Dosser took the picture in his hand to look it closer. "She is the new Vault Hunter. I'm not sure, but they might be in Sanctuary right now." He said and handed the paper back to its owner.

"May I ask, why are you looking for her?"

The masked man didn't answer. He just took the paper and put it back to his pocket.

"You don't talk much, don't you?" The dosser asked and chuckled. He took his cigarette pack from his pocket and stood up.

"What's with that mask? You look crazy with it", the cocky youngster said, while laughing amused and maybe a bit haughtily. His friend laughed after him, he obviously had to do everything like how his friend did.

"Shut it, before he beats you up", the dosser snarled.

Both youngsters started to laugh even more. "What? He doesn't even know how to speak!" the cocky one said, between his laughter.

The old dosser shook his head frustrated. He seriously hated those ignorant chumps. He was just about to leave and smoke his cigarettes, but then he turned to look at the stranger. He handed his cigarette pack over the man to offer him a cigarette.

"Do you smoke?" he asked.

The masked man shook his head.

"Good. That's not healthy anyways", he said and chuckled again. "Bad habit."

The stranger nodded. It looked like he had thanked more than reflected his agreement. The dosser walked outside and lighted his cigarette.

It was a weird day indeed. Like someone had heard his wish and made his day a lot more interesting. But something wasn't right. Usually he could sense what kind of person someone was, but this time it was different. The masked man was like a black hole, and the dosser couldn't make any sense of the guy. And there was another strange thing; he didn't talk. He tried to figure out why. There were a couple of possibilities. Maybe those youngsters were right or maybe he didn't like to talk. Maybe he somehow couldn't talk and that would suck if the dosser would have that kind of problem.. It would make much more difficult to express feelings and that kind of things. Well, at least his day got better. Or worst.

He walked back inside and the first sight was horrible. There was blood on the walls and on the floor. He saw some guts and body parts laying on the ground. The youngster's heads were collected to table and he recognized their feet and hands laying in front of the bar. Everyone who had been in the bar were laying in the ground, their bodyparts ripped out of their bodies, except the masked man. The Masked stranger had vanished.

The dosser stood still for a moment, shocked for the sight.

"I'm too drunk for this", he said and left the pub.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 – Weird Shit And Some Other Things...**

_Alice was sitting at the same beach where she usually sat in her dreams. This time she didn't want to sit there. She hadn't seen that dream for a while, and every time happened something bad, when she did. She just sat there quiet and waited for what was coming. She still heard that girly laughter from other side of the sea, but this time she didn't want to hear it. It sounded too happy. And something was going to happen. Most of all she waited that strange woman, who had told her about the Vault, but still she wanted to see that weird black figure, what she had seen in her first dream. Nothing happened for a while. There was just that laughter, and the sea. Alice started to get frustrated. She felt the weird feeling in her stomach. Then suddenly she heard the footsteps behind her. She didn't turn around to see who it was. She didn't want to. And even worst, she didn't even know why._

"_Alice", the same woman said softly. She sat down next to her._

"_I'm getting tired of this crap." Alice answered to her. She didn't want to be so rude, but the words came through her mouth, and she couldn't stop them. "I want some answers. What the hell is going on?"_

"_Yes, I thought so." The woman said and smiled a little. "Tonight I'm here for that. But we don't have much time."_

"_Yeah, you said that last time."_

"_So I should begin immediately. You didn't steal the Disaster… Well, kind of."_

_Alice frowned. "What that supposed to mean?"_

"_That's very hard to explain, especially, when you don't have your memories… But you will find out soon enough what I mean. And then the next thing; your friend was right."_

"_You mean Zer0?" Alice asked confused._

_The woman nodded. "The Vault is the cause of your changes. It effects to humans more that animals and robots. But still it makes them weaker and… I don't know… More evil. Some kind of black aura envelopes them and changes them. The same kind of aura eats humans alive, if they are near of the Vault." She turned to look behind her and then she looked at Alice._

"_I'm sorry, but I need to go now. I will meet you again, and tell more about your life." She said and smiled sadly. "Your father is worried about you." _

_After that she vanished like smoke to air. _

"_What? My father? NO! NO, NO, NO!" She screamed in frustration. The woman had finally said something, which wasn't so confusing then suddenly she just vanished like that. She cursed inside of her mind._

_Then suddenly she heard more footsteps behind her. She turned to look and noticed, that she wasn't on that beach anymore. She was standing in modern hallway and was waiting for the elevator to get up on her floor. Some random normal looking humans were walking behind her and didn't even pay any attention to her. She looked around her and saw big window screen, which were apparently the walls in that hallway. She was standing on a blue fitted carpet, in front of the elevators steel door. Below the door was a digital red numbers._

_Wow, floor 87? Seriously? She thought in disbelief. _

_She looked behind her and saw tall high-rise buildings through the glass wall. Then suddenly she startled the sudden 'PING' sound and realized, that it had just been the elevator. It opened and then she slowly walked inside. Elevator looked nice. Its walls were covered with mirrors and it had a that same colored blue fitted carpet on the floor. Now she was standing in front of the some kind of touch screen, which was next to the steel door. It was obviously the device, which made it possible to choose the layer where you wanted to go, but she didn't know how to use it. She just stood there looking so dumb, until someone harrumphed. Then she realized, that she wasn't alone in this elevator._

_She turned to look at the man who was standing on the corner. He had creepy looking mask (obviously the same mask, which was in the previous chapter.) and he looked at the Alice, like he was waiting something._

_Oh crap, Alice thought. She pressed the 1 button and walked awkwardly next to the man. She looked at the man with corner of her eye, trying to think, where that man was familiar. Then suddenly it hit her._

"_You are that fuzzy figure from my first dream, and this is a memory!" She thought out loud accidentally. Then she realized what she had done and looked the man. She felt the burning growing on her face and the redness emerging out._

_The masked man looked at her confused. Or at least he looked like he was confused. He tilted his head and froze for a moment. If he had talked, he had probably said 'What the fuck are you talking about?!', with very puzzled tone. After a few minutes, the man got to his own floor and left the hardly blushed Alice alone in the elevator._

"_How it's possible to be this awkward inside the freaking dream?" She muttered to herself._

Then all the sudden she woke up. She was laying on her bed, inside of her blanket. _Well, that was weird_ _dream,_ she thought. She got up and looked out of the window. The full moon was shining brightly in the sky and shone above the Sanctuary, as it made the buildings look a bit gray. She walked in her bathroom and looked herself in the mirror. She was tired, but didn't want to sleep. She got a weird feeling, that something was going to happen soon. Something big.

She flinched from the sudden knocking on her door. She slowly walked on her door and opened it to look who the hell was bothering her in the middle of night. The hallway were filled with darkness and it was hard to perceive anything. She heard a knocking on her left and looked over it. After a while, her eyes got used to darkness and she saw Angel in front of the Maya's door. Door opened and Maya looked annoyed at her.

"Wake the others. We need to hurry", was the only thing that Angel said and ran away, while Maya and Alice stood in hallway confused.

Alice looked at her with interrogative expression on her face. Maya shrugged for answer and went to wake Lilith. Alice walked over the door, which was on her right and knocked it. She couldn't hear any answer, so she walked slowly inside of Gaige's room. She heard a soft snort coming from the bed's location walked next to it.

"Gaige?" She called. There was no answer.

"Gaige! Wake up!" She almost screamed. Gaige startled awake and pointed at her with her robotic arm. Then she realized who she was pointing and lowered her arm and chuckled tiredly.

"Gosh, I almost summoned Deathtrap to kill you. You should be more careful."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Angel found something. We need to go."

Gaige rubbed her eyes and stood up tiredly. "Well, let's go then."

* * *

All the Vault Hunters were standing in computer room, in front of Angel. She had woke up everyone all the sudden, and had said that she had found something and they need to hurry. Everyone had gathered to computer room and some of them were still almost half-asleep. They all were puzzled of the situation.

Angel walked next to computer and selected some files, what she had found and put them to hologram screen. The pictures and some kind of a map appeared in front of them.

"When we get that hologram thing?" Gaige whispered to Maya

Maya shrugged and looked confused at Angel. Well, they all were confused and maybe a bit indignant, when she had woke them in middle of the night.

"I found something, but unfortunately Captain had found it too", she started. She had dark circles under her eyes and she looked like she hadn't slept for ages. "I found the location of the first Vault Key piece… And you need to find it… Before Captain does."

She made a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep, but she couldn't. She was fright. What if someone would find the Vault when she was sleeping, and destroys the whole world. She zoomed the location on map and pointed it.

"It's in Eridium Blight. I'll put the location to your maps… But before that we should decide who are leaving."

Axton frowned. "Why can't we all go?"

"Because of Captain. There might be possibilities, that I find the next Vault Key piece and if I do… She will find it too. So, in that case someone should stay here. And this might be a trap", she answered quietly.

Lilith nodded in agreement. "We should split." She turned around to look at her friends. "One of the snipers stays here. Axton, Gaige, Maya, Alice and Salvador, you go with Zer0."

"What about me?" Keith and Brick asked the same time.

"You stay here with us." Lilith commanded.

"What? NO WAY!" Keith tried to protest, but Lilith shushed him.

Gaige smiled happily. "This is like when we were after Jack. New Vault Hunters are back in business! Except for you, Alice." She said and chuckled.

Salvador snorted. "And me. I'm not coming."

They all turned to look at him confused.

"What?" Maya asked shocked. "You have been all the time so depressed, and now you aren't even coming with us?"

He shrugged and made a tiny smile. "These guys needs me more than you do. I can feel it", he said and chuckled.

Maya just shook her head and didn't even try to change his mind.

"Okay then. If you guys found out something strange you contact us." Lilith said and smiled to them "Good luck."

After that the group walked outside of the HQ. The sun was rising above them, when they approached to Fast Travel Station. A few seconds later they appeared next to Eridium Blight's Fast Travel. The area was different nowadays. There had been bandits and bullymongs before and now the place was just filled with silence and ashes, which rained from the sky.

Zer0, Maya, Alice and Gaige waited while Axton was spawning their vehicle. He had little issues with choosing the right weapon to it. He chose the barrel launcher and the Bandit Technical appeared in front of them. Axton already sat on driver's seat, so Gaige, Zer0 and Alice sat on the back of the technical, while Maya chose to sat on gunner's seat. Gaige dangled her legs from the hole of hte car's back and whistled cheerfully. Axton speeded on the bumpy road and Alice didn't know how to sit. She was too scared to move, and she could just imagine how she could just fly over the edge of the car. She would die before they even reached the Vault. That would be hilarious. Zer0 sat in front of her calmly and Maya shot a couple rocks with the launcher. She had thought, that they had been enemies, maybe some bandits, but then just after she had shot, she realized that they were just the pieces of the nature. Then she just kept firing of those rocks and didn't even care anymore what she was shooting. That didn't help on Alice's feeling at all.

Zer0 found it very amusing to watch Alice's expressions. Sometimes she looked like she was about to cry and sometimes she almost screamed out loud in horror.

A **:D** emoticon appeared on his visor, and unfortunately Alice noticed it. She had started to think, that he was a nice guy, but sometimes he was annoying as hell.

"What? You think this is funny?" Alice snarled annoyed.

"**:D**", was his answer. It annoyed Alice even more.

"Stop it. This isn't funny! Axton is insane!"

"That might be right, but this is still a pretty amusing", he said and chuckled.

Axton didn't ride so recklessly for purpose. It was hard to ride with that kind of car, and moreover that he had to occasionally check out his map. And that place was like a labyrinth. He hated that place.

"Hey, I could use a little help here! Where are we?" He asked and looked at his map. Just second later, when he wasn't watching the road, he hit straight through the huge rock in front of them. The technical started to peeping strangely and the croup evacuating the vehicle. A few seconds later the car exploded to million pieces.

"Great, Axton. You destroyed our car!" Gaige shouted angrily.

They were standing dumbly on the rocky ground. In front them was a huge volcano, and the lava was flowing to the ground. The air was pretty hot to breathe.

"That doesn't matter, Gaige. We are here", Maya said thoughtfully. She looked her map to check the location again. Just in case. The pin point was pointing straight to volcano.

"This can't be right", she muttered. The Vault Key piece was in this volcano?

"Good, you are there. And yes, Maya. The piece of the Key is in that volcano in front of you", Angel's voice said though their Echos.

"Dude.. We are going to burn alive", Gaige said in horror. She didn't want to burn alive. Not this young. "And by the way, how are we even able to go inside of… That thing?" She continued confused.

They heard a soft chuckle from other side of their Echos. "There is some kind of doorway on side of it. I don't know exactly where, but you should find it."

Gaige shook her head frustrated. "I have never seen any doorways in here…" She muttered to herself.

They started to walk toward the volcano. The hot air made a bit though to breathe, but at least they weren't dying. They walked for a while next to it, trying to find that freaking doorway. Sometimes some of them thought, that he/she had seen the hole in it, but after all they all were dead ends again. Almost one and a half hour later they were now other side of the volcano, and all of them started to get frustrated. They had just walked half way around that huge rock, which was filled with magma and the hot air was making them tired. Now they were standing straight next to the volcano, on the point where that lava wasn't flowing.

"Okay, let's cut this crap!" Axton snapped. "I. Don't. Walk. Anymore."

Maya chuckled amused. "You are a soldier, are you? Stop that whining."

"Yeah, but in army we didn't need to find something next to freaking volcano!"

"Okay. It's volcano. Deal with it. But think what we are doing. We are saving this god damn world again."

"We aren't saving anything! We can't even find anything!"

The arguing lasted for a while. Even Alice and Gaige joined and shared their own opinions. Zer0 wasn't on that mood, but he had to admit, that was kind of amusing. He leaned his back on the rock, which rose like some spike from the ground behind him, arms crossed. He was an assassin for hire and killed people for money. He had been on many adventures, and killed almost at least one of every species what existed in that universe. He was a challenge seeker and now he was standing there doing nothing else than listening those morons. Sometimes he despised his new life. On that moment something snapped inside of his head. He wasn't going to live his life like this anymore. This was going to be his last adventure as a Vault Hunter, and then he would go to do his real job, as an assassin.

He stood there for a while and listened how others were still arguing. Suddenly he felt the burning on his back, and stepped further away from the rock he was leaning. He turned to look at it confused. On its side were a letters, or what ever circular marks, which looked like letters. He knew many languages and this wasn't one of them. The letters were written with lava? Or at least it looked like lava and was pretty hot. He knew that he obviously shouldn't touch those letters, but the curiosity won. And after that he hoped, that someone had touched it for him. He felt a tingly pain on his fingers and saw as his left hand's glove started to burn.

"Holy shit!" He screamed, as the flames started to crawl along his fingers.

Others turned to around and looked, as he shook his hand into air like maniac and tried to stop that burning. Finally when the flames vanished, he noticed that the price of touching dumbly that rock wasn't only the scald on his fingertips. Suddenly they heard a loud crackle around them. Huge stone pieces fell from the volcano, and a hole appeared to the side of it in front of them.

"Good job, Zer0!", Gaige cheered. "You found it, so you can go first. Did you just swear?"

He looked at the girl and raised his eyebrows, as a **… **hologram appeared on his visor. Then he walked firmly toward the cave's doorway.

"Strange…" He muttered, when he noticed the air inside of the volcano. It was much cleaner and not that hot to breathe anymore. On the walls were trails, which were filled with lava. Those circular shaping trails continued along the cave's passageway. Those lava trails were the only source of light, but still they brightened the whole cave, with dark orange and red colors. They kept walking deeper into the volcano, until the passage divided into two tunnels.

"Well, crap. What now?" Maya asked and turned to look at the others. They just stood there dumbly.

Alice sighed tiredly. "This might not be a good idea, but we could split." She proposed.

Zer0 stood next to her and nodded in agreement. This wasn't the wisest idea at all… Well, when someone splits away from the other group they usually ends up dead. But in this case, they would be in this volcano for a long time, if they would do that. And I mean a LONG. Then Gaige nodded after him.

"Alright then. I'll go with Axton. I don't want to let him go alone. He is going to get killed if I do." Maya said jokingly and poked Axton with her elbow. He just rolled his eyes for answer

"Okay!" Gaige cheered and turned to look at Zer0 and Alice. "Which way?"

Zer0 looked at his left hand, which had burned earlier. It itched strangely. His glove had burned around his index finger's tip, which had blackened from the soot. He had strange feeling and he didn't knew how to describe it. He looked at the left tunnel. He felt like it would be the right way.

"There." He answered and pointed at the tunnel with his other hand.

"Okay then. Let's go, Maya." Axton said and walked towards the right tunnel. "Oh, and echo us if you find that piece of Key." Then the duo vanished into the left tunnel.

The other tree started walking into their tunnel. They walked in silence for an hour and that annoying tunnel felt like it would never end. Those trails started to get more brighter and it almost hurt their eyes.

"Oh god… My legs are killing me", Gaige muttered, while walking.

"Yeah." Alice said and nodded. She felt tired too. Her legs hurt from the walking and the air started to become hot again. But not that hot, as outside. It was still a bit frustrating.

"We are close", Zer0 whispered more to himself, than to others. He felt odd. His hand was burning and he felt a little sick. Sweat ran over his forehead, and in the first time he just wanted to tear his helmet off his head. It was harder to breathe than earlier and he started to feel dizzy.

Gaige frowned in confusion. She looked in front of her, into the deep tunnel. There wasn't any signs of end of it. "How do you know that?"

Zer0 felt like he was going to fall from the dizziness and stopped walking. He leaned with his hand to the wall and sighed.

Alice walked next to him with worried expression on her face. "Are you okay?" She asked.

He sat down on the ground and leaned his back to the wall. He sat there for a moment, while Gaige and Alice looked at him with worried and very confused expressions. Then all the sudden he noticed that something had changed with the tunnel. Those lava trails had ended on the point where they were standing (and sitting) right now. It just ended to on bigger circle. And then there was nothing else than normal stony wall. That had to mean something.

"Do we have explosives?" He asked.

The question kind of freaked the hell out of Gaige. They had explosives, but she wasn't sure did she want to use it right now.

"Yes we do… Why..?" She asked carefully. She didn't want to blow into million pieces, when Zer0 (who obviously wasn't feeling well..) was handling those explosives.

Zer0 didn't answer. He stood up and walked in front of the opposite wall. He knocked on that point where the trails ended. They heard a dull sound, which meant that the wall was hollow. Apparently something was on other side of this wall, and he kind of knew what it would be.

Gaige's and Alice's eyes widened, when they heard that sound

"Oh god. You are genius!" Gaige shouted excitedly. She took her little bag from her back and lowered it to ground. She started to dig something inside of it and soon a couple pieces of explosives appeared on her hand.

"C4, at your service!" She cheered and stick up them to the wall in front of them. She took the zapper into her hands put her thumb on top of the red button on it.

"You should back away little", she said excited and made a freaky grin.

They all backed for several meters away from the wall. Alice put her hands to her ears. She obviously didn't want to lose her hearing. She had the feeling that there was too much C4 for one wall, so she was ready to make her shield around them too.

"KABOOOM!" Gaige screamed, as she pressed the red button. After that they heard a lot louder KABOOM in front of them. After that Zer0 heard some annoying beeping sound inside his ears, but Gaige looked like she didn't have any problems like that. She had to be deaf already.

"You spend too much time with Tina", Zer0 muttered and held his head with his hands. He could feel the upcoming headache.

Gaige just laughed for the answer. They walked in front of the hole. C4 had apparently successed with its job. There was a huge hole on the wall's place. They all looked to other side. The sight was breathtaking. There was an enormous open place with a lava sea. The walls were almost fully covered with those circular trails. The lava exhaled hot air and it made huge bubbles. There were tiny rocks and stones, which rose from the lava. Middle of the lava was some kind of a hill. Apparently the only way to that hill was those rocks… Or maybe flying, but none of them had wings… And there obviously had to be something even worse. On the hill's peak was sitting one giant and very burning Rakk, which had the first Vault Key piece on its neck, like some god damn necklace.

"How lovely", Alice said softly and looked at others. A few dots on Zer0's visor and Gaige's widened eyes reflected nicely their feelings of the sight.

* * *

Moxxi sat on the table in her bar's backroom. She was a little bored. She didn't need to do much stuff anymore, when Keith was helping her with the bar. Now he was bartending for her, so she could rest for a while. She hadn't used to it. She had always worked alone in her bar and now suddenly someone was helping her. Now she had too much time. She kind of envied the Vault Hunters who had left to search that Vault Key piece. She didn't have much action in her life anymore.

She sighed, while walking to door and went back to the bar. Then she noticed that Keith was gone. He wasn't behind the bar, as he should be. In front of the bar was standing some man and waiting for service.

"Great job, Keith", she muttered and walked other side of the man.

"Hello, there. How can I help you?" She said and smiled her adorable smile. While smiling, she noticed some strange things of the man. He had a black mask with two white lines and he looked really creepy when he had his hood on.

Man put the paper to table and pointed it with his leather gloved hand. Moxxi leaned closer to table and looked the paper. It was a picture of Alice. She looked it for a moment, not to know how to think. Man obviously was looking for her, but should she help him… What if this man wanted something bad.

"I… I don't know who she is. Sorry", she said after hesitated for a moment. She rose up and straightened her back, and when she did it, she saw a pistol's pipe couple inches away from her head.

"Crap.." She whispered.

* * *

**Alright, chapter 5 done… Sorry for delay, my mind is empty as hell. And I want to name every chapter what I write, and obviously I didn't have any idea how to name this… So… Yeah. Oh, and sorry. I love cliffhangers.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 – The First Piece**

Moxxi looked at the pistol's pipe for a while. Then she raised her gaze at the masked man, who had that pistol in his hand. Many horrible ideas flashed inside her mind, about how to safe her own life, but any of them sounded too ridiculous. In all of them was a tiny risk. She could be too slow to avoid the bullet. She heard the clock ticking and the slot machine's sound started to hurt her ears. She had been so many times in this same position and always something bad happened, but not to her. But now the only thing her mind was, that this time this would end differently. The bar was empty. No one was here to safe her… Except Keith, but she didn't know where he was. In the first time she felt like she needed someone. And she didn't even care who.

Man's pistol stayed in front of her forehead, and his hand didn't even shake at all. They stood there for a while, silence surrounding them. Moxxi felt the sweat flowing slowly on her temple. She saw with a corner of her eye a shotgun, which lounged on the ground on her side of the bar. There was just one thing what held her back. Was she fast enough, or would that bullet hit her straight into forehead.

"Are you going to kill me?" She asked and tried not to ruffle her voice. She didn't want to show her nervousness to this guy. She gulped slowly and looked back at the mask.

Man tilted his head a little and it sounded like he had chuckled. Yeah, She would have fun too, if she would be on this man's position. Then a couple new horrible things flashed through her mind. What if this man was some kind of pervert? She looked at him again. Nah. She could recognize that kind of men. But there still something weird. She knew that her look couldn't help her either.

Man pointed at the picture again with his another hand, while the pistol's pipe stayed on Moxxi's forehead. Moxxi closed her eyes and tried to think some kind of escape plan. When she opened her eyes, she saw Keith behind the man. He had a chair in his hands. He put his index finger to his lips and lifted up the chair slowly. Moxxi turned her gaze back the man, who apparently hadn't noticed that someone was behind him and was planning to knock him out with that chair.

"What do you want from her?" She asked quietly, without turning her gaze away from him.

Man didn't show any signs of answering. She looked carefully back to Keith and saw as he swung fiercely the chair. The chair hit the masked man's back and broke into several pieces. But somehow the masked man stayed still, like nothing had touched him and didn't even sway. He lowered his gun and turned slowly to face Keith. He raised his other hand and took other of his black swords from his back.

"Okay… This wasn't like I planned…" Keith whispered and stepped slowly away from the man. Every step what he backed, the masked man followed. He felt horrible chills on his back, when he heard man's quiet and low laughter.

Now when that masked man was focusing at Keith, Moxxi realized that her opportunity had come. She grabbed the shotgun from the floor and jumped to other side of the bar. She raised the gun and pointed to his back with it.

"No one kills anything in my bar, except me!" She screamed and pulled the trigger. The shot hit straight to his back and made him stagger forward. Keith ran out of the way next to Moxxi.

"Good job!" he said in relief.

Moxxi chuckled. "Well…" She cut her sentence before she even started, when she saw as the masked man straightened and turned to face them again. He started to walk slowly closer to them and took his other sword from his back too. He didn't look hurt at all and even worst; now he was angry.

"Uh-oh…" They both whispered at the same time.

* * *

At the same time on Eridium Blight Axton and Maya realized one thing; They were lost. The cave was bigger labyrinth than they had thought. They had separated from the group and half an hour later they had met more crossroads and tunnels and then a few more tunnels and now they were on the start. Now they were facing again two tunnels and had to decide the right way. Again.

"I choose this time", Maya said frustrated.

Axton shook his head annoyed. "It doesn't matter what you choose. It's wrong way anyway."

"Screw you, Axton! This is your fault", she snapped.

"How this is my fault? This place is a fucking circle!"

Suddenly they heard a loud caw and they both went silent. They froze for a moment and then they looked at each other with very confused and worried expressions. Axton walked slowly in front of the left tunnel's entrance. The glowing lava trails had ended a long time ago and that tunnel was surrounded with pitch black darkness. They didn't have any flashlights so Axton didn't see anything further from his nose. He walked slowly closer to the sound. He flinched when he heard the noise again. Suddenly he saw something orange approaching him. He squinted his eyes to see better, as the orange thing came closer. Second later the he realized what that thing was. It was a swarm of burning rakks.

"WHOAAA!" He screamed, as he started running away from them. Two seconds later he met Maya in front of the entrance, who looked at him eyes widened.

"What?" She asked when Axton ran straight past her. She turned to look at the tunnel's side and saw dozens, maybe even hundreds of burning rakks coming closer and closer. She made a fearful yell and ran after Axton.

Axton ran far away from the tunnel and heard Maya's footsteps behind him. They ran for five minutes, and soon they didn't even know where they were. They were in some kind of tunnel again, but now in front of them was a huge wooden door and nothing else. Maya grabbed the door handle and pulled it, but unfortunately for them the door stayed closed.

"It's locked", she said in horror.

She turned around and faced the approaching rakk swarm. So many burning creatures made the air hotter and harder to breathe. She raised her hand and phaselocked one of them, at the same time when Axton deployed his Sabre Turret. Few of them cawed on horror when they were pulled to the orb, as the slag spread on them. A dozens of rakks still approached them, but at least those five faced a painful dead. Immediately after deploying, Axton's turret started to shoot several targets.

The number of those flying annoying creatures started to decrease slowly, so Maya had now an opportunity to work with that locked door. She tried to phaselock it, she shot it, she even tried to push through it like everyone did in the movies, but none of them worked.

"The door beat me", she muttered.

* * *

The situation in Sanctuary wasn't that better. Keith had realized two things in ten minutes. Flying straight through the wall hurt like hell and trying to save himself with throwing bottles of Rakk Ale wasn't helping. Now when he was a bit smarter, he hide himself under the table. He was opposite of the bar's backdoor and now his target was that door. He had witnessed something very disturbing when that masked man, who was seriously pissed off, had just grabbed the gun from Moxxi's hands had folded it in two pieces with his bare hands. After that he had threw Moxxi to the floor and her head had hit the bar table's corner. Now she was laying on that same point very unconscious. Then he had started to toss Keith. After all that, Keith had decided that his best opinion was hiding.

Man had just disappeared somewhere, so now might be his change. He had a plan. He wanted to crawl fast as he could to backroom, settle his breathe, find some kind of weapon and save Moxxi somehow. That plan sounded impossible in his head, but it was best what he had. He looked to his sides and hesitated for a moment. Then he started to crawl quickly towards the backdoor, without looking behind him. Two seconds later he was there. He stood up and saw with corner of his eye someone walking closer. He didn't need to check again who it was. He opened the door and slammed it behind him, before that maniac could get his hands on him again.

Now was the second part of his plan; calming himself. That part was completely failure and he decided to move on. He leaned his back to the door felt his heart bounding wildly, as he started to find a weapon with his eyes. He didn't even care what kind of weapon it would be. He needed something sharp.

Just as he noticed the knife on the table he heard a loud crack behind him. He turned around and saw as the hand pierced the door and made huge hole on it. He was too slow to react, when the hand grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door. The force sent him fly to other side of the bar and he smashed to the floor next to the front door. The air escaped from his lungs and he felt a sharp pain on his forehead. Then he heard footsteps behind him, and didn't want to get eviscerate like some fish, so he tried to stood up. Unfortunately, it didn't work well. Then he raised his head and noticed kind of feminine feet in front of him. He looked up and saw Lilith standing next to the front door with widened eyes and she had Salvador, Brick and Mordecai with her.

"Uh… Hi, guys…" He grunted and collapsed into unconscious.

* * *

"So… How are we going to get there?" Gaige asked inside of the volcano. They all looked at the lava and those tiny rocks, which rose from it. There wasn't any clear ground below except the hill, where that giant Rakk was laying.

"Let me show you", Zer0 said calmly and went to hole's edge.

Without hesitating he jumped on nearest the stone, above the lava. Then he started jumping forward and soon he reached the hill. He jumped on hill and looked at the Rakk. It was huge. Its other wing laid on the ground and other had sunk in the lava. Apparently the lava didn't hurt it. Huge flames flared from its head, wings and back. Zer0 noticed that air changed a lot hotter, when he walked closer that giant creature. I didn't move at all, when he approached it, like it didn't even hear him. Then the realization hit him. That burning giant was sleeping.

"No, no, no, no. I'm not going to jump there. I'm going to burn alive!" Gaige shouted from the hole.

Zer0 turned his echo on. "Shut up, Gaige. It's sleeping", he whispered.

Gaige frowned and turned to look at Alice, who was trying to contact with Maya and Axton with her echo devise.

"Darn it. They don't answer", she muttered and turned her echo off. Then she looked at Gaige, who obviously didn't want to go through that hole. "I can go first, if you want."

Gaige nodded slowly and waited still, as she jumped down on the nearest stone. Then she turned around and waved her hand.

"Okay, your turn. Don't worry, Gaige. You are not going to burn alive, if I'm here", she said softly. She didn't want to wake that giant Rakk.

Zer0 walked next to Rakk's enormous head, which was as big as two crystalisks and stretched his hand closer to the Vault Key piece. Then he felt burning pain on his hand and pulled quickly his hand back. He looked confused at the piece. It looked different, than the other Key pieces what they had found, during the fight against Jack. It looked like a piece of jigsaw puzzle and it was only as same size as riffle bullet magazine. It was deep black colored and it glowed a bit white light from the thin white trails. Those circular trails looked same as those which were on the walls, except for the color. The Key piece was bounded around the Rakk's neck with a thick metal chain. Zer0 considered different ways to cut the chain somehow and none of the sounded quiet enough.

Suddenly he quailed, when he heard Gaige's horrifying scream. He turned around and saw as she jumped on the rock and almost fell into lava. Alice made a shield around her and after that she sat on the rock relieved.

He sighed and turned back to face the Key piece. But suddenly instead of the Key piece, there were a two giant eyes looking at him. The giant burning Rakk opened it mouth and huge flames surged from there. Zer0 jumped away and the creature rose into air. It was too big to fly away from the place, so it decided to burn those Vault Hunters alive first.

"Great." He looked up, as it tried to fly forward. It looked a bit clumsy, when it almost hit the stony wall.

Rakk's enormous wings made the weather a bit windy and those two who were still standing on the rocks almost flew away. They started jumping closer to hill fast as they could, as Zer0 took his sniper from his back. The Rakk was easy to aim, but his sniper didn't make much effect.

"This is going to take forever…" He muttered.

Gaige and Alice reached the hill and started to shoot the creature too. Alice had bought a brand new rocket launcher from Marcus, and now was a great time to test it. It didn't make that much effect either, but at least it hurt... And made it a lot angrier. It flew down and swiped at their direction with its long tail. Alice jumped over it, but Gaige wasn't fast enough. The thick tail hit her and sent her flying into air.

"Gaige!" Alice screamed in horror, as she watched the girl's flight.

Zer0 had jumped over the tail too, but unfortunately he hadn't noticed the flying girl. Gaige's flight ended by hitting his back and sent him sway forward, until he fell to the ground.

"Ouch…" Gaige rasped. She laid on the ground and felt sharp pain on her stomach, where that tail had hit. She heard coughing behind her and turned to look at Zer0 who was laying next to her.

"Oh, did I hit you?" She asked and chuckled carefully, and instantly regretted of doing that. I hurt like hell.

Zer0 sat down slowly and gave the finger at her. Gaige raised her eyebrows and stood up. She picked up his sniper from the ground and aimed the approaching giant with it. The bullet went straight into its eye and it made deafening caw after that. It lost its balance and started to fly sideways.

"Holy shit! I pierced its eye!" Gaige cheered amazed. She hadn't seriously aimed anything.

Zer0 stood up next to her. An **!** appeared on his visor, when he noticed the falling Rakk and they were straight below it. It was falling ON them.

"Move!" He shouted and pulled her away. His sniper fell from Gaige's hand as they ran away from the giant. It fell directly in front of them and its tail threw the sniper into the lava.

"Are you two okay?" Alice asked, after she had ran over.

Gaige looked down at herself and then at Zer0. She shrugged and smiled tiredly.

"Yeah, we are, but Zer0's sniper isn't", she said and pointed it. It was slowly sinking inside the lava and its pipe had already melted badly.

"I paid fortunes for it", he whispered, when he watched the sinking. Soon it was gone. He turned to look at the Rakk. It was half flying into air and laying on the ground at the same time. It looked like it had little issues of staying up. Something snapped inside his head and made him to want that annoying creature's head. If someone breaks his stuff, his going to break everything what belongs him/her/it. He took his sword in his hand and started walking closer it.

"Where are you going?" Alice shouted worried.

"To end this!" he shouted back while walking back.

She turned to look at Gaige confused. Gaige's expression wasn't that confused. It was more like scared and worried at the same time.

"Uh… His flipping", she said and looked at the siren. "We… You should help him, so he doesn't burn alive."

Zer0 walked in front of the Rakk with determined mind. It was too focused of trying to fly, so it didn't even notice the human in front of it. That pissed him off more. He wanted it to see when he was going to kill it.

"Hey, you piece of shit!" He shouted to it.

It turned its big head and looked at him puzzled. Then it opened its mouth and spitted flames from there. Unfortunately for it the flames didn't touch anything else than Zer0's hologram. Rakk's eyes widened when he appeared next to its wing. It was too slow to react, as he raised his sword and stabbed the wing with it. He swung once the sword and a huge tear appeared on the wing. It made a deafening caw again and swung fiercely its tail to his direction. He ducked down and dodged the quick tail above him. Just as he rose up the tail was swung back to his direction. This time he didn't want to dodge.

"Let's make you blind", he said and made a wicked smile behind his visor. He jumped over the tail and pierced it with his sword, before it made past him. He didn't pull his sword away from it. Instead of doing that, he held it in his both hands and squatted on the tail. The giant Rakk was too stupid to realize, that it had a passenger on its tail and continued the swinging. It managed to fly a bit with its broken wing and flew in couple feet above the ground. Zer0 pulled his sword away and crawled along the tail, toward its back. He stopped on the point where the tail ended and looked the flames, which came from Rakk's back. He rose up to squat, and pierced its lower back with his sword, to get more balance. On that point the burning and very angry Rakk noticed him. It started to fly recklessly and tried to drop him.

"Zer0, you are insane", Alice's voice said from echo. He was too busy to stay on this rodeo, so he didn't even bother to answer.

"I can make shield around you, so you don't burn yourself", she continued.

Directly after that, the glowing white circle appeared around him. The air was much cleaner and flames didn't get through the shield. He stood up slowly and kept his other hand on the sword. Then he pulled it off and started walking towards the head. The flames surrounded him and that giant started to get more nervous, as he approached its neck. He took his sword to his other hand and and knife to ither, while hesitated for a moment. Then he ran along its neck and jumped on its head. The Rakk started to shook its head furiously. He stabbed the Rakk's forehead with his knife and dropped himself to side of its head, in front of its eye. He held on the knife, which was the only thing that kept him up there. The eye turned to look at him in horror.

"Sup?"

He swung his sword and then stabbed the eye with it. Rakk started to caw from the pain, and the sound of that echoed in the cave. Now it was blind and didn't know what to do. It fell to the ground and tries to shook him off. He climbed up to its head and kept his other hand on the knife. Then he stood up carefully and jumped on its neck. He raised his sword and made his last move. He swung once the sword through the neck and jumped to the ground. Rakk looked like it hadn't realized yet what had happened.

Gaige and Alice watched amazed and eyes widened, when the Rakk's head fell down to the ground behind Zer0. The rest of its body fell couple seconds later and stayed motionless on the ground. Zer0 walked in front of the head and pulled his knife off it. Then he turned to look at the Vault Key piece, which was laying on the ground next to the head. Those trails on it glowed like a heartbeat.

"That was awesome!" Gaige cheered and jogged next to him.

He leaned closer to the Vault Key piece and looked at it confused. He had never seen anything like that, and it felt odd. There was something bad about it, but he couldn't explain what. He didn't even want to touch that thing. Gaige grabbed the piece, while still smiling excited and put it into her bag.

"What now?" She asked.

"There is a door", Alice said and pointed behind them. There seriously was a big wooden door, but they hadn't noticed it during the fight. It was directly on the opposite side as the hole, where they had came from. There was even a stony pathway above the lava.

They were just about to walk over the door, when suddenly they heard a loud BOOM. The door exploded to several pieces and fly into air to every direction. Then there was only a lot smoke on the door's place. They all raised their guns and sword, and were ready to fight against what ever was coming through that "door".

"That's how you open the god damn door!" They heard a familiar voice shouting.

"Shut up, Axton", Maya answered at the same time when the smoke was vanishing into air.

Zer0, Alice and Gaige lowered their weapons in relief. The duo walked closer and noticed immediately the huge head behind the group.

"What did we miss?" Axton asked and chuckled a bit, when he noticed the bruises and tiny wounds on other Vault Hunters. He and Maya had wound and bruises on themselves too, from their own fight against those tinier rakks.

"Zer0 slew a dragon!" Gaige answered happily. "You should've seen that!"

Zer0 shook his head. "It wasn't a dragon. It was a Rakk."

"At least it was big as dragon", Alice said amused and made a soft laugh. "And we got the Vault Key piece."

Maya and Axton looked at each other. They had been lost in that volcano for a long, long time. Then a they had met swarm of rakks and got stuck with them. For what? They went through everything that just to notice, that the others already had that freaking piece of Key.

"So… We came here for nothing… Great…" Axton muttered, when they started walking away.

* * *

Lilith was having a boring day, until to Moxxi's bar. She, Salvador, Brick and Mordecai had waited Angel, as she tried to find the next Vault Key piece location. After a couple hour, they gave up waiting and wanted to get wasted. But unfortunately that wasn't going to happen.

She walked with her friends to Moxxxi's and saw Keith's flight, which ended directly in front of them. There were shattered bottles and tables all over the bar, huge hole on the wall and on the back door.

"What the-..." Lilith cut her sentence, when she noticed some freaky looking masked man inside the bar. That man had obviously thrown Keith from other side of the bar. She saw Moxxi, who was laying on the ground behind the man. There were enough reasons to start a fight. She took her smg from the holster and pointed at the man with it.

"SMAAASH!" Brick roared all the sudden and ran over the man his fists raised up. He swung his other fist to man's direction, but suddenly man had vanished in front of him. He had a time to see someone appearing behind him, with corner of his eyes. But as he was turning around, the masked man kicked him to the back. The force of that kick made him smash through the wall and made a new hole to it.

"Brick!" Lilith screamed.

The masked man turned around to face the rest of the group. He had a black sword in his other hand. Salvador and Mordecai ran forward closer to him. Mordecai took his sniper and started to shoot him with it. Sniper wasn't the best gun, it the target was that close, but he didn't have his pistol with him. Somehow the masked man dodged every shot what he made and always when he disappeared, there was just a red flash on the point where he had just stood. Then suddenly he appeared in front of Mordecai and hit him straight to his lungs. Mordecai crouched from the pain and then the man hit him to his teple and stent him flying from the force too.

After he had fell into unconscious, Salvador took his shotguns into his hands and fired them both at the same time. Man disappeared again and appeared next to slot machines. He grabbed the corner of the machine and tore it from the wall. He pulled it in front of him and waited behind its safe, until Salvador's magazines went empty. Then he lifted the machine a bit and threw it to Gunzerker's direction. Lilith appeared next to him and transported them away from the machine, just as it almost hit him in front of the front door.

"What the hell is that pendejo?!" He shouted in enraged.

"I hav-… Watch out!" Lilith screamed, when she saw the other slot machine flying into air, to the direction where they were standing. She raised her hand, without even thinking and the slot machine vanished in above them. She took her smg again and started shooting that very annoying man with it, but of course he disappeared somewhere.

Then suddenly she heard a click from her echo device. "Lilith? I found-..." Angel started, but Lilith interrupted her.

"Not now, Angel. I'm a little busy… Whoaa!"

The next thing what the masked man sent flying was Salvador's other shotgun. He had just appeared after a red flash in front of him, grabbed the gun from his hands and threw it outside the bar. Then he grabbed him from his neck and tossed him to other side of the bar.

"But I found the second Vault Key piece!" Angel said through her echo.

"Send Vault Hunters from the Eridium Blight there. We… We got something to do right now", She said and turned her echo device off. Then she turned to look at the masked man who was fighting with Salvador and Brick. Brick had just woke up and was a pretty angry. Salvador tired his best to shoot him, but failed every time. Soon the masked man grew tired of playing. At least it looked like he was playing with them. He took his pistol and shot them both in the head. After that the due fell down to the ground and disappeared with a blue glow. At least the New-U stations were working.

* * *

Vault Hunters had just leaved from the volcano, when Angel contacted them. They were all tired and wanted to sleep, but of course that wasn't an opinion.

"I found the second part", Angel started. They all knew what that meant. More adventures…

Maya sighed tiredly. "Are you serious?" She seriously wanted sleep. They all did.

"Yes. It's in Three Horns – Divide… You can see the direct location from your maps", she said and after that she turned the echo device off.

Gaige shook her head frustrated. "What about Lilith and others? Why can't they go?"

Others shrugged.

"A guess they have a good reason", Alice said calmly. She seemed to be only one, who wasn't that frustrated.

"To the Fast Travel then!" Axton commanded and they all slowly started walking.

* * *

"Alright, let's stop this", Lilith muttered and walked closer to the masked man.

Man raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, but at the same time Lilith phasewalked away from the bullet. He stood still for a moment, a bit confused, until Lilith appeared behind him and had her smg raised. But then, he obviously wasn't here to get shot from the Firehawk and disappeared.

"Oh, god… This is going to last forever", she muttered and had same kind of feeling, as Zer0 had earlier. This was going to be very frustrating.

They disappeared and appeared for a moment until they both grew a bit frustrated. Then Lilith decided to phaseblast that guy. She had Incendiary Artifact on, so she might as try to burn the hell out of him. She phasewalked next to him and when she appeared again, a huge flames dashed from her Phase Blast. Flames spread on him, and for a moment he looked like he didn't know what to do. But that moment ended too soon and he disappeared.

"Great. That didn't work well", Lilith whispered.

She looked around and tried to find that annoying guy and fliched, when he suddenly appeared straight in front of her, without any flames. He was only few inches away from her and looked like he didn't want to fight anymore. He looked down at her, and Lilith noticed how tall he was. Not as tall as Zer0, but almost. He leaned down, closer to her, until their faces were couple inches away from each other. She felt her heart bounding and something kept her standing still. She didn't know why, but she didn't even want to back away.

"W-what…" She started, but suddenly forgot her words. They got lost into her throat, as she looked at the mask in front of her. She could see the sad emerald green eyes behind the mask. She couldn't breathe, as the man raised his hand and brushed softly her chin. Her heart started bounding faster and faster. He leaned closer, until their faces almost touched and Lilith didn't know what to do. The moment felt like it lasted ages. Suddenly something snapped in her mind. She backed away, when she didn't even wanted and raised her hand. She didn't know what she was doing anymore.

"Too close", she whispered and pointed the man with her hand, as the purple light surrounded him. Then she transported him away from the Sanctuary. She stood there alone, while the others were unconscious and still thinking what had just happened. Her heart was still bounding like hell, and she couldn't focus on anything. She didn't know what had happened, and she didn't even want to know. It was just something what she couldn't explain.

* * *

**Chapter 6 done. **

**Oh yeah, and thanks to reviewers, viewers and readers and other different creatures (Who made their reviews, followed and stuff on my last story… That, which I accidentally removed a couple hours ago… But, now I managed finally to put them back. All of them. Including this. Fuck sake. It was frustrating. )**

******By the way. If something bothers some of you or you aren't understanding something in this story, feel free to ask. I'll try to explain!**

**To HPK ****, who commented to fifth chapter, before I freaking deleted it: **

**-I have no idea how long this story of mine is going to be. Obviously a pretty long. We have just started this journey, so this is just a start. Thanks for asking. :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**I don't know where this idea came from. Thanks for the reviews, etc. You guys make my days!**

**To May0forever3:**** - Yes, there is a reason why Angel is alive. She died and after when Lilith transported The Vault Hunters to Sanctuary, she came back somehow. And how?—you are going to find out, if you continue reading this story. The answer is going to be revealed later. :) **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 7 – The Boat Trip**

Lilith led out a deep sigh, as her heart started to beat normally. She could feel her hands still shaking from adrenaline and her legs were quivering. Million thoughts were whishing in her mind and she felt like she just wanted to scream out loud, even though she didn't know why. Any of her thoughts didn't have any sense. She tried to move them away, but they got louder and louder. She was just probably insane.

She led out another sigh. Her legs didn't have enough strength to carry her and she fell on the ground on her knees. She closed her eyes and tried to shut those thoughts. Suddenly she felt someone touching her shoulder and startled. She forced her eyes to open and saw Brick next to her, looking at her worried.

"Are you okay, Lilith? Where is that… Guy?" He asked softly and looked her straight into eyes.

"I… I don't know…" She whispered. She swallowed and tried to strengthen her voice. She felt still a little shaky, but she didn't want to show it to her friends. "I teleported him away… I don't know where exactly."

She heard as Mordecai grunted something behind her and she turned to look at him. He looked horrible. Blood trails flowed on his face and he almost couldn't stand straight. Keith didn't look that better either. He was sitting on the ground and holding his head with his hands, as the blood covered him. Brick and Salvador had been the lucky ones… If New-U stations wouldn't be working they would be dead. At least they all were alive.

"Mordecai and Keith, you go over Zed", she said quietly. Tone of her voice sounded more than serious and two of them didn't even want to argue with here right now. They left the bar silently without whining.

She saw as Moxxi was trying to lift her half shattered tables back to their own places. She had a long wound on her temple and she limped a bit. She looked calm, but Lilith knew she wasn't. Her bar was almost completely ruined and destroyed, so she was either sad or enraged, but she didn't show it. Salvador went to help her with tables and started to carry them to their places together.

Brick was still keeping his hand on Lilith's shoulder and looked down at her. She sighed again and walked over Moxxi, who was now kneeling down in front of the slot machine. She looked at it silently and suddenly her lips started to shiver and her eyes watered a little. She petted the machine motherly and then turned to look at Lilith. All those sad expressions had vanished from her face and were replaced with a pure fury.

"I'm going to kill that bastard!" She shouted angrily. She stood up and leaned over Lilith. "Where did you teleport him? Tell me! I'm going to rip his head off!"

Lilith looked at her with widened eyes. She had never seen Moxxi like that. "I don't know…"

Moxxi shook her head enraged. "What do you mean you don't know?!"

"I seriously don't know. I didn't know what I was doing… I…" She sighed tiredly and closed her eyes. She was already so confused of the situation and now this. She had a lot questions in her mind and wanted answers. For example; what was that masked man doing in there? How did he get there…? What did he want? She opened her eyes and faced Moxxi's enraged face again.

"What did he want?" She asked calmly. "Did he say anything?"

She could see as Moxxi's brains were ticking and rewinding. Fury disappeared from her face and she looked calmer than before. "Well, he didn't speak at all. But he showed me a picture of Alice."

What the hell did he want from her? As far as she knew, Alice was maybe most lovable girl what she had met… Who the hell would like to harm her? _We need to warn them… He might find them in any second and then they are screwed, _She thought.

"Let's go to HQ… We need to make a plan."

* * *

The Vault Hunters stood in front of the Fast Travel station. They had walked back from the volcano, and now they finally were ready to leave Eridium Blight. Gaige was choosing the right location, but there was something wrong with the machine. Every time when she pressed the point where Three Horns – Divide was, nothing happened. She stood there dumbly for a moment and pressed the button several times after that, but no respond.

"What the…" She muttered irritated. It had been a long day and she wanted to get away from that god damn place right now. She looked around and saw as the rest of the group looked at her more annoyed than what she was. They were still waiting.

"C'mon, Gaige. What the hell is taking so long?" Axton whined.

Gaige shook her head frustrated and slammed the machine with her normal hand. They needed to hurry, if they wanted to find that freaking Vault Key piece, before Captain, and this wasn't helping her at all. "This isn't working!" She shouted.

Zer0 walked next to her and looked at the machine confused. "You just don't know how to use it", he said and chuckled softly.

Gaige's answer was only annoyed scowl. She looked as he lifted his hand and put it on the Fast Travel's screen. He pressed the Three Horns – Divide, and suddenly there was a loud boom. She yelped and jumped away, even though that was a bit too late. Explosion had already come and now there were just some crackles. Explosion hadn't been that big, that it wouldn't had hurt anyone, but that noise had kind of startled her. Sudden smoke surrounded them and made her cough a lot. She waved her hand and tried to sway that smoke away. She couldn't see anything.

"What just happened?" She asked puzzled, when the smoke started to disappear into air. She looked around her at her friends and they looked at puzzled as her. Maya and Alice were leaning on the ground. Apparently they had too tried to jump away that explosion. They stood up awkwardly, when they noticed how stupid they looked. Axton just stood on the same place dumbly and had even dumber expression on his face.

She turned to look at Zer0, who stood still in front of the Fast Travel, or what was left of it. Now it was only a black molten blob on the ground. He turned to look at her and she noticed a tiny scratch middle of his visor. She was just about to walk over him and saying something stupid, when suddenly he fell to the ground motionless. They all stood still for a moment, like they hadn't realized what had happened.

"Zer0?"

* * *

At the same time in Sanctuary Lilith, Brick and Salvador had returned to HQ. Keith and Mordecai were still meeting the doctor, while the other had a tiny meeting in computer room. They needed to make plan, a big one. That masked man was after Alice, and they needed to warn them, but obviously anything wasn't going to be that easy. On the screen was their location, but suddenly the whole computer and lights went off. Darkness surrounded them for a while and they stayed quiet for a while.

"What the hell?" Lilith muttered in frustration. Now wasn't the time for power cut.

Suddenly, right after when she had said that, the powers came back. Computer and lambs went on again, like anything hadn't happened. Except for one thing; they looked at the screen and noticed, that Vault Hunters location was gone.

"What…?"

"That can't be right…" Angel said thoughtfully and started to do something with computer. After several minutes, nothing changed on the screen.

"I… I don't understand. I just echoed to them, and now I can't make a contact to them", Angel said confused. She had just sent the Vault Hunters from Eridium Blight to Thee Horns –Divide, and now she couldn't even find them. "Somehow their Echo Divides are completely off. "...Like they had crashed, or something."

Lilith shook her head. "You got to be kidding me… Okay, boys. You know what this means." She said and turned to look at Salvador and Brick. They looked at each other in confusion, and obviously didn't know what that meant.

"We are going to warn them face-to-face. We are going to Three Horns – Divide."

* * *

Zer0 opened his eyes slowly. He felt a horrible headache on back of his head and heard his heart bounding. The bright sunlight forced him to close his eyes again. His hand was burning and he felt like he wanted to throw up. He heard someone's soft voice talking somewhere far. A muffled voice continued talking and he wanted it to stop. He was finally able to sleep and someone was disturbing him. He turned away from the sound and hit his head on something hard. Agues it was someone's kneecap or whatever. He didn't even care. Then someone else started talking on the side where his head was, and it started to frustrate him a lot. His head felt like it was exploding and he just wanted to lay there and sleep.

What actually was going on? Why he was sleeping when everyone else where talking? Why his hand hurt like that. It was annoying. Then suddenly all pieces collapsed back together. His hand, the volcano, first Vault Key piece, Fast Travel…

He opened his eyes and saw some fuzzy figures around him. They were obviously talking to him, but he couldn't understand them. They continued the talking, and he even tried to answer to them, but somehow he wasn't able to talk. Someone's head came closer to his face and he managed to recognize her red pigtails. It was Gaige.

"Are you awake?" She asked. The voice was still a bit muffle, but this time he understood what she said.

He turned his head to see where he was. There was open sky, and some wooden railings and wooden floor. Other Vault Hunters around him. He felt as the floor swayed a little under him. Then he started to realize that he was obviously lying on the ground. He had some kind of angular and not that soft pillow, under his head. He turned his head and looked where his head was leaning. It was a pair of legs. He actually had hit his head to kneecap. He had using someone's thighs to his pillow. It was kind of hilarious, when he thought it for a while, but then he started to think whom those legs belonged. He looked up and saw Alice's smiling face above him.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, when she noticed the exclamation mark on Zer0's visor.

The realization hit him hard to back of his head and made his headache hurt more. He sat up immediately and looked around nervously. He touched his head and sighed in relief, when he noticed that his helmet was still on. He stood up and felt as the dizziness rose from somewhere and almost fell back to the ground.

"Slow down, cowboy", Maya commanded and grabbed his arm. She almost forced him to sit down. Finally when he was sitting and calm, he turned to look at the others. They were obviously in some kind of boat, but it didn't look like Claptrap's boat. The wood was painted with black paint and it was two times bigger. Although it looked like same, except for those things.

"What happened?" He asked confused.

"Should we start from the point where you … Well, you know. Or the point how we got this awesome boat?" Gaige's cheery voice sounded too excited, when she asked that.

Zer0 leaned his head to his hands. His head felt now even more like it was going to explode. "From the start, please", he muttered tiredly.

"Alright then. I had little issues with Fast Travel, so you-.."

"Yes, I know that part, Gaige"; Zer0 interrupted Gaige. He felt like he was going to puke all over the place, and wanted to go through this conversation fast as he could.

"I don't know what happened, but after you touched the Fast Travel, it kind of exploded and you just passed out", Maya said. She looked at him worried.

"Yeah, and we needed to carry you… It felt like Hell!" Axton whined from the cabin.

Zer0 frowned and looked at the direction where his sound had come. He could hear some weird noise inside the cabin, like Axton was searching something and throwing something out of his way.

"Then suddenly the Fast Travel wasn't working anymore, but we needed to get to Three Horns – Divide, so we stole this boat from the blacksoldiers. It was quite funny trip and now we are somewhere in middle of the ocean… I don't know exactly where", Gaige continued.

Zer0 thought this for a while. They had apparently had their own little adventure on that time when he was… Passed out. It sounded crazy. He wasn't that type to just pass out. Something weird was going on and he knew that. He knew something else too. He was going to throw up in anytime soon and his head felt like he had awful hangover. Then suddenly something popped in his mind and he wanted almost desperately know one thing.

"How long I was… Unconscious?" He finally asked. He had thoughts of being passed out maybe few hours, but Alice's answer made him almost choke.

"Two and half days", she said. She looked for a moment at Zer0, who had frozen for several seconds. "Are you okay?"

He just nodded. It was a big fat lie. He was more than shocked and usually he didn't get that surprised easily. He stood up slowly and walked inside the cabin. Axton was on its back searching for something.

"What are you doing?"

Axton turned to look at him and stood up. "I'm trying to find map, or compass or whatever… Here's nothing else than … This thrash", he muttered and threw the old boot from his hands. "After that Fast Travel exploded, our Echo Divices and Maps hadn't been working… I don't know what you did, but you messed something up."

"Great…" He didn't even know what he had done. He was as shocked as the others, or maybe even more. At least it had exploded on his face.

* * *

It was a moonless night. Zer0 stood behind the rudder, on back of the boat. It was his turn to guard their new boat, while others were sleeping in cabin and it was getting a bit too boring to him. There wasn't actually anything to guard. He could see only that sea around them and he couldn't see any islands or even other boats at all. He leaned on the rudder with his hands and sighed. At least he was feeling better.

He looked at his hands in wonder. That stone in Eridium Blight had done something to him when he had touched it, but he didn't know what. His left hand burned a little all the time and he felt dizzy every time he was near that Vault Key piece (Which was in Gaige's bag, so he kind of felt dizzy every time he was near to her…). It smarted annoyingly, so obviously had some kind of scald or burn on his hand. He looked around him. There wasn't anyone or anything, except that silent boat and sea around it. Now when he was alone, he could take a look at his hand. He grabbed the side of his left glove and pulled it away from his hand. Immediately after that, he wished that he hadn't done that. He looked at his hand in horror, as thin white glowing trails twisted around his fingers.

"Oh god", he whispered. Those trails started on his fingertips and ended on his palm. They glowed on same rhythm as his heartbeat and his skin was dark gray colored around them. He swallowed nervously. He couldn't believe his eyes. Something was horribly wrong with him and he wanted to fix it. Then all the sudden he heard footsteps in front of him and raised his look to the sound's direction. He saw Alice, who was walking closer and put his glove back to his hand quickly. He didn't know why, but he didn't want anyone to see it, before he knew what it was.

"Hey", Alice said softly and walked next to him.

He didn't answer. There were couple things what made him confused. That girl annoyed him more, than anyone else of the group and he loved to make fun of her. She pissed off so quickly and it was hilarious, even though he didn't know why. He didn't want to be rude to her, but sometimes it was kind of hard to talk her, or more like awkward. That's why he didn't talk to her that much and that made many question marks in his mind. Why it was so awkward to talk with her, but not with anyone else.

"What's up?" She asked and smiled. Her smiles where that thing what made her so lovable. Her smile was so bright and happy and it made others smile too. What a gorgeous woman.

Zer0 shrugged. He seriously didn't know. He was confused and scared at the same time. He wasn't usually scared at all, and that made him confuse even more. On top of that, weirdest thing was that he didn't feel that bad anymore, when Alice was next to him. He frowned and turned to look at her. Her smile made her look like beautiful angel. Why on Earth he was thinking like that?

"You have dimples on your cheek, when you smile", He said all the sudden. Couple seconds later he realized what he had said and it made him blush hardly. Luckily he had his helmet, so she couldn't see it. That situation was already so awkward and now he just made it worst. To make him feel better, he could just pretend that nothing happened and he was saying those stupid awkward things on purpose. He noticed as Alice blushed and her face was probably even redder than his. She turned her face away and tried to hide it behind his hair. She tried not to smile, nut it made her look more awkward. On that moment Zer0 seriously just wanted to rip her hair away from her face, but he didn't even have guts to do that.

"Yeah… Agues I have… You… How are you?" She finally stammered awkwardly. She obviously felt too awkward to look at him, so she tried to look at the sea. Sometimes she failed and tried to peek at him behind her hair. She looked kind of adorable when she did like that.

"Fine", He muttered. Why this was so awkward?

"You have a scratch on your visor", she said, when she finally dared to look at him.

That was kind of obvious. Like he hadn't noticed that. It was directly in front of his face and stick out like a sore thumb. So yeah, he had noticed it. "I know."

This started to be too awkward. Alice apparently felt the same way. She had dumb looking smile on her face and tried to look friendly, but failed miserably. You know what they say about blondes... They supposed to be the dumbest ones. …But maybe not this time. She had solved many problems quickly without risking others, so that should tell something. And as far as Zer0 knew she was always thinking and caring about others more than herself.

"You are annoying", she muttered and looked down to her feet. She looked kind of fun when she did that, even though he didn't know why. Know was stupid word. He used it too much nowadays.

"You know what? I might be annoying, but that's only because you are that stupid." He didn't know why, but he wanted to annoy her. It was fun to watch, when she was angry.

That made Alice to glare at him. She was already pissed off and it was just too hilarious. He could see as she tried to figure something clever to say. "I'm not stupid", she said only and apparently failed.

"No, you are stupid, / that's not always a bad thing. / Sometimes it's just fun", He answered in haiku. He hadn't spoken in haiku for a long time and now it started to sound weird always when he spoke like that. Alice looked like she had seriously thought something for a while. This was going to be fun. She seriously didn't understand him, so now he had to say something what wasn't that hard. Even she could understand it.

"You are annoying, / nothing can change that fact. / In your face, ninja", She said finally with a proud smile. She looked so proud of herself. She had just spoken in haiku on first time, so she should be proud. Even though, she had failed. It was so funny to him, so he started laughing like maniac.

She looked at him puzzled. He couldn't breathe, when he was laughing like that and every time when he almost stopped, he started laughing again. He didn't even remember when, nor had he ever laughed like that. Finally couple minutes later he was able to speak again.

"That was pretty good. Too bad you had only six syllables in your second sentence."

Alice made some funny faces. She looked like she was going to scream and like she didn't even know how to feel. "No I didn't!" She said finally in complete frustration.

Zer0 raised his eyebrows behind his helmet and made tiny amused smile. Alice started to count her syllables with her fingers and made her look dumber what she already looked, but after all that just made her cute. It made her to be what she seriously was. She looked up at him with defeated expression. Suddenly she looked somewhere behind him her eyes widened.

"What is that?" She whispered.

Zer0 turned to look at the direction where she was looking. Behind their boat was some tiny black thing far away in horizon. It floated on the dark sea and the rising sun made a long shadow in front of it. It looked like it was slowly getting bigger and coming closer and closer. Soon it was big enough to see that it was a huge boat, or more like ship. It was black, as their boat, but it was three, or four times bigger than theirs. It had a black and a little ruptured sails and red flag with black skull painted on it. It had even a couple cannons on its side. It looked like pirate ship.

"Pirates?" Alice asked quietly.

Zer0 nodded slowly. He wasn't sure. It looked like same as their boat (Except its size and those other tinier things), so it could be one of Captain's ships. But if they had stolen one of her boats that easily, then why wouldn't pirates done the same thing? That flag with skull made it even tougher to know.

"We should wake the others", he said finally.

Alice was apparently a bit freaked out and his too calm tone hadn't helped her with feelings. She nodded and jogged in to cabin. Zer0 could hear as she shouted to others and tried to wake them up.

He peered at the ship's direction and tried to see it better. He wanted to see passengers, but the ship was too far away. This was one of those moments, when he wished that he could still have his sniper. He didn't have any guns with scope, and it was too frustrating. Suddenly he heard several footsteps behind him.

"You may want this", He heard Maya's voice from behind him.

He turned to look and saw sniper in her hands. It wasn't very good and great sniper as his last sniper, but it worked well. He didn't have much choice. He took it and aimed at the ship with it. Passengers looked a little like bandits, but at least not that insane. He continued his aiming, until he found one person, who looked like some kind of boss. She had a bit dark skin color, funny gray looking pirate hat and some kind of ring on its side, red hair and half of goggles, which covered her right eye. He could even see her piercing on her lower lip's left side.

"Scarlett?" What the hell? Why she was here and why on earth she had Captain's boat?

"What?" Maya and Gaige asked the same time.

Zer0 turned around and gave the sniper back to Maya. She started to aim at the ship's direction, and apparently recognized her too. Soon the ship was maybe 300 feet away from their boat and he saw as Captain Scarlett waved to them with her hook hand. She looked too cheerful and he had a bad feeling about this. She was this far middle of ocean and it couldn't mean anything good. She was probably going to backstab them.

"Hello there, Vault Hunters!" She cheered from her boat. She was now close enough, to them to hear her. "What are you doing here?"

"We could ask you the same thing", Axton answered calmly. He obviously had the same feeling what Zer0 had.

The ship was now only less than 30 feet away from them and came slowly closer. Now they didn't even need to shout at each other. "I'm hunting, of course!" Scarlett said and laughed a little.

Zer0 frowned. Hunting? There wasn't anything to hunt. Every creature had disappeared somewhere a long time ago and he hadn't seen any fishes on this side of Pandora. There was too cold. The water hurt most of the humans when they touched it. But if Scarlett was hunting something here… What the hell was that then?

"Hunting what?" he asked.

Scarlett turned her gaze at him from Axton. She looked a bit amused, and he had no idea why. There was something somewhere under them, was it? Answer for that question came soon enough.

"Well, Kraken of course!" She answered cheerfully.

They all were quiet for a while. Several dots on Zer0's visor reflected his feelings well enough. Kraken, a legendary sea monster of giant proportions was here on Pandora, and even worst, in this same ocean where they were having their lovely boat trip and Scarlett was hunting IT.

"No way… It's just a legend", Axton said quietly. He looked at his friend haltingly. "Is it?"

Scarlett laughed amused from her ship. "Yes, is it? Let me tell you something. You might remember my pet, Roscoe, which you killed by the way? Well, I found out that he had a brother, so I of course found it. I was here trespassing and he was with me… We of course had bigger boat back then. And then suddenly that son of a bitch ate my ship and my new gorgeous pet."

Gaige gave a tiny laugh on that moment. Well, it was kind of funny. Scarlett's every pet what she had were eaten by someone… It was kind of ironic.

"So, you are here to revenge?"

Scarlett squinted with her eye contemplatively. "Well, kind of. But now we are here stuck with you, so I can easily defeat it with your help. After that, I am probably going to backstab you."

"Why do you think that we would help you?" Maya asked confused. Yes, they had bigger ship, more man power and huge cannons, but still.

Scarlett smiled at them. "Because it's right next to you", she said with triumphant tone.

The Vault Hunters froze for a moment. They looked like they hadn't quite understood what she had just said. "What?" Maya said puzzled and broke the silence.

"It ate my ship and now I can see its location. It's next to your boat and probably sleeping in bottom of the ocean."

Zer0 turned to look at his friends. Gaige and Alice had horrified faces, Maya looked like she didn't even believe what that woman was telling to them and Axton… well he looked just confused. Zer0 himself didn't even know how to feel. If there seriously was some sort of a giant sea monster below them… Well, it might be a great challenge or end of them all.

Suddenly there was a deafening sound, like someone had just burped loudly. There weren't any other words to reflect the sound. Ocean around them started to wave a lot, like some kind of storm had just started. The weather was suddenly windier than seconds ago and it was throwing their boats a little.

"What the hell is going on?!" Alice screamed. The wind made hard to hear almost anything and water was slowly starting to fill their tiny boat. They all grabbed on something and tried not to fly over the railings.

"Uh Oh. We might just waken the mighty Kraken!" Scarlett cheered from her ship. She didn't sound worried at all. All the sudden a tiny whirlpool appeared next to their boat and flow started to pull them closer to it. Whirlpool grew bigger and bigger in every second and it was going to swallow them.

"Crap. Hold on!" Axton shouted to his friends. He grabbed the rudder and started to rotate it, but unfortunately their boat wasn't turning around. Whirlpool pulled their boat closer and it started to careen it slowly. It was pulling head of their boat deeper.

Vault hunters grabbed on something, when the boat suddenly jumped a bit and turned almost upside down. Then the flow started pulling its bow and tilted. It started to tilt more and more toward the upright, and they needed hold on something, so they wouldn't fall. Soon the whirlpool was several times bigger than their boat, and could suck those both boats into it.

The boat was now almost upright and they all fell to lie on the cabin's wall, which had suddenly become their floor… (This point was pretty hard to explain... Hopefully you can understand this.) Zer0 stood up slowly and leaned his back to the boat's floor. He obviously didn't want to fall over the edge. Others followed behind, but suddenly Gaige fell and started to slide on toward the edge. She almost dropped from the boat, but Maya raised her hand and Phaselocked her quickly. She pulled her back up and dropped her carefully to the "floor", near their new "wall"

Zer0 looked up and saw Scarlett on her ship. She was giving some kind of orders to her pirates and they started running somewhere. At least her boat wasn't sinking yet.

"Hold on down there!" She screamed to them.

Yeah, what else they could do. They didn't want to wait that much. Then her pirates threw a chain rope down over them.

"Tie that around something! We are going to pull you, so you don't fall!"

They did what she told. Axton took the rope and jumped over the left side of the boat.

"Axton!" Maya screamed, when he looked like he was going to fall. He grabbed the on the railing and tied the chain around the metal ring on its side (which are used to tie the boat to dock.).

Zer0 moved on the left side of the cabin and reached out his hand, so Axton could grab it. Commando turned around hand jumped toward him and grabbed his hand. Zer0 pulled him back to cabin's side (which was now cabin's floor). Scarlett's ship started to pull their boat away from the whirlpool, but its force was too strong. Ship only made their boat to stay on same place.

"It doesn't work! You need to climb!"

Then suddenly there was another deafening sound, which came below them. They all leaned over the edge and looked the sound's direction. They saw something horrible. There was a giant creature in middle of the whirlpool and on bottom of the sea. It had an enormous hear, with giant mouth and sharp teeth. It had thick and long tentacles, which tried to reach their boat. It looked like an octopus, fish and dragon at the same time, but a lot horrifying.

"Uh-Oh…" Axton almost whispered. They all were speechless. This was Kraken, and it wanted to eat them.

Suddenly it managed to grab on the side of the boat with its tentacle, and made it made the whole boat to swing hardly. Everyone tried to hold on something, but there wasn't much thing to hold. It started to swing their boat and it made Alice suddenly staggered a little forward, until she fell over the cabin's edge.

"Alice!" Maya screamed in horror. She wasn't fast enough to Phase Lock her, but fortunately she hit to boat's railing and didn't fell over in to Kraken's throat. But unfortunately she hit her head too and went unconscious. She was laying on the railing's edge, and looked horribly like she was going to fall in any minute.

Zer0 threw out his sword and looked at the tentacle. Then he kneeled down and leaned with his hands over the cabin's wall, where he was standing. He looked down at Alice who was still lying on the same place. _She is going to die, if I don't do something,_ he thought. He had some crazy pictures in his head about falling into Kraken's mouth and that kind of stuff, but he didn't want to be in someone's stomach again. The first time in Leviathan's belly had been worst enough and he didn't want to try it again. Then he made his decision. He was going to save Alice, no matter what would happen. He sat down on wall's edge and prepared to jump down on that railing. There was just a one thing what made him hesitate. What if he would accidentally jump over the railing? That would be embarrassing.

"Zer0, what the hell are you doing?" Maya screamed to him. "You are not going to-.."

In middle of her sentence he dropped himself from the cabin. He landed on the tentacle and swung it once with his sword. There was again that deafening sound, when Kraken's tentacle was cutting in two pieces. Maya looked in horror when he jumped from the tentacle and fell next to Alice.

"You are insane!"

He had heard that several times before, but this was different situation. Last time when he had done something as reckless as that, he had been pissed off. Now it was about saving someone's life and even more… Saving Alice. He needed to save her, no matter what. At least that tentacle had been the thinnest one. There might have been tiny problems to cut it with one swing.

He looked at her. She had a little blood on her wet hair, but nothing more serious. He looked down and saw slowly rising Kraken coming closer to their boat. How the hell it was even rising like that? Its teeth looked bigger and sharper now, when it was closer. It looked hungry and its giant tentacles almost reached the boat again.

"Hurry up!" Gaige screamed above them. He looked up and saw as Scarlett and her couple men threw two ropes over them. Maya and Gaige started climbing towards the bigger ship, while Scarlett and her men tried their best to pull them at the same time.

"Quick!" Axton shouted down at him, and leaned over the cabin's edge.

Zer0 wrapped his hands around Alice's waist and pulled her close to him. Then he lifted him up into hug, as gently as he could and started to walk/climb towards Axton. The boat was almost upright, so it was pretty tough to climb bag up. Then finally, when he was already exhausting and his hand was still burning, he finally reached the cabin's edge. He lifted them up at the same time, as Scarlett threw those two ropes again down to them. Seriously? They didn't more ropes, than those two? He stood up and carefully tied the other rope around Alice's waist. Scarlett's men started to pull her up immediately.

"That rope is going to snap if you climb at the same time!" One of pirates shouted to them.

Two of them looked at each other for two seconds.

"You go first", Zer0 said quickly. Axton hesitated a little, and then started climbing towards the ship. Zer0 looked down and saw approaching Kraken coming closer. The boat was already upside down on upright and it was starting to fall again. Soon the whirlpool would suck Scarlett's ship too.

Suddenly hear a horrifying sound, like metal would just cut off. He felt, as the cabin disappeared below him and he started falling closer to Kraken. That moment was like his heart had forget couple beats somewhere. But then suddenly, when he was sure about dying, someone crabbed his wrist. He looked up and saw Axton, who was hanging on the robe and had returned back down to help him. He was holding his wrist with his other hand and holding two ropes with other.

"Gotcha, buddy!" He screamed and smiled.

This was unusual. There was someone who thought, that HIS life was actually worth to save? Realizing that made him feel something weird… Maybe it was happiness. It was a new feeling to him. He hadn't never been actually feeling happy, maybe only some little hints of happiness, but never completely happy. He knew that he cared about other Vault Hunters and they cared about him, but he couldn't never even dream about being saved by one of them, who was seriously risking his life with doing so.

A **:) **appeared on his visor and he grabbed the rope below Axton. They started climbing towards the bigger ship, while Scarlett's men were pulling it. Soon Axton reached the railing and pulled himself to other side. Then right after him Zer0 grabbed the railing and pulled himself to deck's side too. He fell to the ground exhausted and stayed there for a while.

"Fucking asshole!" He heard Maya's angry voice, as he stood up slowly. She ran over him and hugged him tightly. "You almost died!"

There was something strange about her tone of voice. It was a little shaky and it sounded weird. He shook her away from him and backed away, just to notice her wet eyes and tears on her cheeks. It was strange. Had someone died, or something? Why did she cry? He had never seen her cry before. He didn't quite understand this.

"You are crying", He said quietly. Everything was so confusing nowadays.

Maya shook her head enraged. "No, I'm laughing! Of course I'm crying, you son of a bitch! I almost lost one of my closest friends! What the hell were you thinking?"

In first time of his life, Zer0 was speechless. He didn't know how to react. There were so many strange things, what he didn't understand. She… They all seriously cared that much about him.

"I… I'm sorry", he whispered finally.

"Okay, let's get moving!" Scarlett voice came from other side of the boat. She was standing behind the rudder and now when everyone was on aboard, they could finally leave. There wasn't much time to hesitate anymore. Her ship had started to tilt a little and they needed to hurry if they wanted to get out of there alive. Scarlett screamed couple commands and the ship started turning around and moving forward.

Then they finally were able to leave that freaking whirlpool. They were several feet away from it and that annoying Kraken… Or that was what they thought. Whirlpool was gone, but Kraken wasn't. Huge tentacles rose from the sea around the ship and grabbed on its side. More tentacles appeared and started to swing themselves. Wooden ship pieces flew around them and half of the ship's mast flew into air.

"Defend the ship!" Scarlett yelled to her pirates. They started shooting at the tentacles and some of them went to fire cannons.

Gaige raised her hand and deployed Deathtrap at the same time when Axton's turret appeared in front of him and started shooting its missiles at the tentacles. Deathtrap's laser was good weapon in that moment. It sliced and cut the tentacles easily. Maya exploded them with her Phaselock and Zer0 was doing his things with his sword. Soon those tentacles started to grow tired, but Kraken got angrier. Its tentacles retreated and then there was only silence. There was too silent.

Zer0 walked over Alice, who was lying on the ground next to Maya, who was apparently protecting her somehow. She was still unconscious.

"Hey, you are a siren right?" Scarlett, who had appeared suddenly in front of them, asked.

Maya nodded for answer and a pirate grinned cheerfully. "I have heard what that Eridium stuff does to sirens. It makes you more powerful, right?"

Maya nodded again. "I haven't used it so I don't know. But it does it to Lilith."

"Yes, mighty Firehawk... Well, I have that Eridium stuff, if you want to try", She said and showed her a tiny fabric bag, which was full of Eridium.

"I... I don't know… I have never-…"

Maya was cut by Gaige who made frustrated a loud sound, which reflected her feeling greatly. Just after when she had made that sound, a giant head rose from the sea. It's tentacles started mashing the ship again and it opened it enormous and spiky mouth again. Its mouth approached them slowly and it even had a tentacle kind of tong which tried to pull the ship to its mouth.

Maya didn't hesitate anymore. She took the bag from Scarlett's hands and took the Eridium in her hands. She looked like she didn't quite know what to do. She closed her eyes and the purple light started to glow around her. Soon the light disappeared and she opened her widened eyes.

"Wow, this feels awesome!"

Everyone, who wasn't that busy to do something looked at her and waited her to do something. Kraken's teeth almost touched the boat already and looked hungrier and angrier than before. Zer0 had a bad feeling about this. If someone wasn't going to do something soon, that thing was going to eat them. She looked at her hands for two seconds and then turned to look at Kraken with determined mind.

Gaige turned away from Deathtrap and turned to look at Maya. She looked now more serious than earlier. "You should Phase Lock the Hell out of that thing!"

Maya smiled some wicked smile, what Zer0 had never seen before. That Eridium was obviously doing something to her. "No. I have better idea", she said and grinned. "We are going to jump."

"Wait what?" Gaige asked confused.

Zer0 didn't know what that siren was up to, and he maybe didn't even want to know. This was going to be something shitty.

"Hold on!" She screamed and raised her hands a little. Her siren tattoos started to glow brighter than ever before and the same pinkish purple color started glowing around them. The whole ship was inside the purple orb and started rise slowly from the water. Soon it was several feet above the sea and Kraken was only a tiny spot middle of it.

_Crap, she was talking literally,_ Zer0 thought and grabbed the railing. This was going to be rough jump.

Suddenly Maya waved her both hands up and pointed the sky with them. The ship suddenly jumped up into air so quickly, that almost threw him over the railing. He couldn't hear anything else than wind. It lasted several seconds and he felt like he was going to throw up. He had never been seasick and now he knew how it felt. Then suddenly he could feel as they were falling down and suddenly they hit something, which made everyone on that ship to fall on the floor from the force. After that, the purple orb was gone and the ship wasn't moving anymore.

Zer0 stood up slowly and looked around him. Couple of pirates had passed out, and the rest of Vault Hunters were trying to stand up a bit shakily. Maya was sitting on the floor and looked more than exhausted. Scarlett was helping Alice to sit. At least everyone were alive.

Couple minutes later all the Vault Hunters were recovered and standing again. They all looked confused around them, not quite knowing where they were. The place looked like Three Horns – Divide, but how on Earth they made that far? Apparently Maya's siren powers were… awesome and a lot more powerful when she used Eridium. They had landed straight next to Claptrap's boat, so they obviously had made it. They had just been in middle of the ocean and suddenly they were there. That was just amazing

Gaige walked over Maya and looked like she was more than pissed off. "You could've warned!" She yelled to her.

Maya shook her head. "I kind of did", she said tiredly.

"Yeah, but I didn't know that you were going to Phaselock us and send us flying!"

"At least we are where we are supposed to be", Zer0 said. He still felt like he was going to throw up, but Maya had still just saved their lives. That was incredible. Yeah, and now he was seriously going to throw up.

Scarlett walked over them and smiled cheerfully. "Well, this was fun. We should do it again sometime."

"No freaking way! I'm going to throw up…" Axton whined.

"You aren't the only one", Zer0 muttered, as they all walked over the back of the ship, to the direction where the 'beach' was. They gathered in front of the railing and turned to look at Scarlett.

"I'm not going to backstab you this time, fellows", She said and smiled to them. "But we'll see what happens in next time."

"Are going back?" Maya asked.

Scarlett shook her head. "No. There was enough hunting for one day. Now I'm going to find a new treasures and adventures."

Axton chuckled. "I just want to go to sleep, but unfortunately we need to find that god damn Vault Key piece."

Scarlett made a tiny laugh. "Well, Good luck with that then. We'll meet again soon enough. Farewell, Vault Hunters."

They left the ship with positive minds. They had faced Kraken, who should be just a legend and survived. Maybe someday they could find it again and kill it. Who knows? Sun was shining above them and they could finally start their new adventure.

They walked toward snowy tunnel, which had been full of Bullymongs and their piles, but now there weren't any sights of them.

Zer0 wanted to throw up, but still he had to admit that he had had a great time. This was the challenge what he had always been seeking. He just needed to keep his hopes up, so it wouldn't end that soon as they always did. He had a great friends and a place what he could call home. He had started to have second thought about leaving and returning to assassin career. He was happy here with them, so did he even needed to leave? Maybe time would tell him. He looked at his friend and made a tiny smile.

"Strange things happens on Pandora", he said softly.

"Impossible things…" Gaige muttered tiredly.

"That's not always a bad thing", Alice said and smiled. Her smile was so bright and it made others smile too. What a gorgeous woman.

"I still wanna throw up"

"Me too…"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 - The Second Piece**

Maya felt tired, after she had Phaselocked their ship. Eridium had done its job, but after that she felt like she didn't want to try it again. It made her feel great and a lot more powerful. That feeling was awesome, but afterwards she felt sick. Eridium was like drug, which made her want to use it more. She didn't want to get addicted with it, like Lilith seemed to be. It just felt wrong.

The group walked towards the Fishguts Outpost in Three Horns - Divide. The area was too quiet now, when all bullymongs and bandits were gone. One question rolled in everyone's mind; where are they? They had just vanished like smoke into air. Why actually that had happened now, right before they had discovered that new Vault. They all thought the same what Maya did. There had to be some reason. That couldn't be a coincidence. There was something going on and it included that freaking Vault.

Maya sighed tiredly. Their maps didn't work, so they couldn't find that second Vault Key piece. Only if there would be some kind of miracle... Suddenly she startled, when she heard someone screaming. She raised her gaze and saw group of blacksoldiers and one bonebreaker standing inside the Bloodshot camp. That bonebreaker had lifted one of those blacksoldiers, and now it was waving him into air. Other blacksoldiers looked like they didn't even care.

She saw, as Axton put his finger to his lips and the group started walking slowly towards the camp's fence. Snow made their footsteps almost unheard. They ducked in front of it and peered to other side.

"Come on, put him down", one of the blacksoldiers said frustrated. He was the first one who even dared to say something. Bonebreaker growled angrily and it made every blacksoldier to back away from him. They were terrifyingly scared of the bigger guy. Bonebreaker tossed the blacksoldier to the ground and started walking away from them.

"Freak", one blacksoldier whispered, but unfortunately for him, that piece of boulder heard him. He turned around, grabbed him with one hand and ripped his head off with other. Rest of the soldiers stood frozen for a moment and looked, as the giant tossed their friend's body to the ground. After that, they all stayed quiet, too scared to say anything.

Maya turned to look at Zer0, who was ducking next to her. She took her sniper from her back and handed it over him. He took it and stood up. Just when he was about to walk in front of the camp's entrance (which looked awfully like dinosaur's bony head), she grabbed his wrist. He looked at her confused, as a red question mark appeared on his visor.

"Don't do anything stupid, okay?" She commanded with serious tone. He nodded slowly, when she let him go. She noticed Alice's interrogative expression, with corner of her eye. She chose to ignore it.

Zer0 sneaked in front of the camp's doorway, and knelt down. His target was that huge guy, who had started to toss his companions again. He raised his sniper and aimed to bonebreaker's weak spot, which was said to be neck. He held his breath and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and suddenly before that bonebreaker could even realize what had happened, his head popped away from his body and he fell to the ground. His body followed behind two seconds later.

"Farewell, foolish thing / Know that you have been deceived / As your soul moves on", Zer0 muttered to himself, while reloading the sniper.

Blacksoldiers looked like they didn't realize what had just happened. They looked at each other and one of them even walked over the bonebreaker's body and kicked it a bit, just to test if he was still alive. Zer0 shook his head frustrated and waved his hand, so they could see him. They looked at him confused, then looked again at each others and then they started running towards the Assassin.

Maya and others jumped from their hide and ran behind Zer0, who was sniping those dumb-asses. There was maybe nine of them and five of Vault Hunters, but they could take them out easily. They ran towards Vault Hunters and fell dead to the ground one by one, in every two seconds. Eight seconds later, Zer0 lowered his sniper. He didn't want to kill all of them. They would need one, who they could interrogate about the second Vault Key piece. He looked at one of them, who had stayed behind and tried to snipe him. He raised his sniper again and aimed the sniper-guy. He shot the blacksoldier to the knee, and he fell screaming to the ground and dropped the sniper from his hands.

Maya Phaselocked one blacksoldier and sent him burning. She watched as Axton's turret killed two of them and Gaige shot one. Then there was only one left, who was sitting on the ground and trying to reach his sniper. Just when he almost reached it, something invisible kicked it away from him. He made desperate yell, when Zer0 appeared in front of him. He raised his sword and pointed at the blacksoldier with it.

"Don't move, don't even breathe / If you do, it's your last one. / Do you understand?" It took few seconds before that blacksoldier understood his words. He nodded quickly and looked to the ground. Zer0 noticed, as he tried to hold his breathe like he had commanded him. _Oh god, he took it literally, _he thought, while shaking his head irritated.

"I'll ask only once / Where is that damn Vault Key piece? /Tell me now, or die", he said with his coldest tone. It apparently worked, because his hostage started to stammer something, what he didn't quite understand. After couple minutes he got more irritated about this guy.

"Speak like normal person", he commanded and dropped his haiku.

Blacksoldier look at him with scared expression. He apparently realized, that he was getting frustrated. "I-I don't know... We have map, where the Key piece's location is."

"Alright. Give it to me."

"Okay, okay, just chill out", Man said and raised his hand. Zer0 saw, as he peered at his sniper's direction. He could let him try to take it, but he was probably going to be slow to do that. He would be dead before it. The blacksoldier took a paper from his pocket and handed it to him. It was paper-kind of map. He hadn't used that kind of maps for ages. Everything what they needed was on their Echo Devices, which unfortunately weren't working right now. He looked at the map and frowned. It was somewhere at the Frostsprings, place where Reiss was rescued (and unfortunately died... Rip).

He looked at the blacksoldier, who suddenly had knife in his hand. He stood up and tried to stab him, but hit only his hologram.

"What the-..." He was cut (literally) by sword in his chest. He looked down, like didn't know what had happened and then fell to the ground, very motionless and dead.

"Fool", Zer0 muttered and pulled his sword away from his body.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were sitting on the Bandit Technical, but this time Axton wasn't driving. He was sitting on the back of the technical with Alice and Maya, while Zer0 was sitting on a driver's seat and Gaige was on the gunner's place. Zer0's driving was a lot smoother than his, but not slower at all. Despite the smoothness, Alice was still freaked out. She scared for her live and didn't want to move. They drove for a while, Zer0 put on the brake all the sudden. It threw them all forward and then they didn't move anymore.

"Zer0!" Alice yelled, when she tried to sat again. He pointed in front of them and everyone looked at the direction. There were dozens of whitestrikers ahead. They couldn't get past on them with car, without being noticed. Zer0 handed the map to Alice and then they walked closer to the snowy cliff. They hid behind the cliffs corner and peered at the whitestrikers.

Alice leaned her back to the snowy cliff. The snow was so soft and it was almost impossible to stand straight, without falling. She took the blacksoldier's map from her pocket and looked at it confused. The Vault Key piece's location was behind them, but there was only that cliff on its place and she couldn't see any whitestrikers on top of it._Wait, this is strange. It should be here, but it isn't,_ she thought and looked around her. She started thinking different possibilities and then she suddenly got it. It was there, but they couldn't see it. It wasn't on the cliff, so what if it was under it?

"It's below us..." She whispered and smiled triumphantly. She put the map back into her pocket. "Zer0, I know where that Vault Key piece is!" She cheered and grabbed Zer0's arm. Right after that, when she stepped forward, she felt as the snowy ground disappeared below her feet.

Zer0 was too absorbed to peer at the whitestrikers, so he couldn't react fast enough, when Alice fell through the ground and pulled him down with her. They fell couple seconds, until they both thumbed to the ground.

"Ugh... My back..." He groaned, when he tried to sit.

Alice stood up slowly and looked around her. Everything around them was made from ice. There was familiar thin trails on the walls, but this time they were glowing a blue light, which brightened the whole tunnel. That tunnel looked like same as in that volcano in Eridium Blight, except the ice and color.

"This place looks pretty familiar", she muttered. Zer0 nodded and stood up next to her. She looked up and saw that hole few meters above them, on the tunnel's ceiling, where they had fallen from. Gaige looked down from the hole and looked relief, when she noticed them.

"Are you okay?" She yelled above them.

"Yeah... You should come here."

Soon all of them had jumped down from the hole and looked at their surroundings. Everything was almost too familiar, but at least now they were closer to their destination

"Aw, c'mon. Seriously? I'm so tired of these kind of tunnels..." Axton whined, when he had realized where they were.

"It could be worst... Like... What if the next Vault Key piece is in Kraken's stomach? That would be sick", Gaige said and chuckled softly, when she thought it for a while. She looked to the ground, while they were walking deeper into ... That icy place. She took her bag from her back and pulled the Vault Key piece from it. It was weird. It felt warm and alive... That sounded stupid. Alive?

""Ew, this thing is so creepy", she muttered and turned to look at Maya. She handed the piece over her. "Touch it."

"What? That sounded kind of... Odd... Like something what Axton would say.." Axton raised his eyebrows and looked confused at Maya. Maya just shook her head and chuckled. Then she took the Vault Key piece from Gaige's hands. It felt weird to her too.

"Ew, gross. It feels like it's alive, or something", she said and handed it to Axton.

"That's what I thought!" Gaige looked at the deeper into tunnel. At least this time there was only one tunnel, so it wouldn't be that hard to find that Key piece.

Alice was their mapper, and she apparently wasn't enjoying it. She sighed frustrated all the time and looked irritated too. They walked for a while, until the tunnel divided to two tunnels. She looked at her map, and noticed that the both tunnels ended at the same place; to some kind of big round-shaped open area. There was a red cross, which was obviously the location of Vault Key piece. There was maybe ten-fifteen minutes, before they would arrive to their destination.

Zer0 looked at the Vault Key piece, which was still in Axton's hand. He felt sick, when it was near him and his hand started to burn again. This all was already too frustrating.

"What's wrong with your hand?" Maya questioned.

He looked down and realized, that he had rubbed his palm with other hand, without even noticing. He was just about to answer something, when he heard Gaige's amazed yell.

"Wow, what the heck is that?" She yelled exited. They all turned to look at the direction, where she was pointing and their eyes widened from the sight. There was a huge open area, made from ice and an icy fortress, which made a circle around a huge ice statue. Statue was huge. It reached the cave's ceiling and it was as big as the five layered building. It looked like human. It had an old man's face and human hands. It stood middle of the cave, looking grandiloquent. Those blue trails, which mirrored their light, made it look even greater.

"Well... This is something new", Axton said amazed. They started walking closer to the figure, still amazed from the sight. It was just beautiful. The fortress was like a rampart, which protected the statue somehow. Even though, they walked past them and nothing happened.

"Is that the Vault Key piece?" Gaige asked suddenly. She was pointing somewhere in front of them. Other followed her finger with their eyes, and saw the Vault Key piece above them. Unfortunately it was inside the icy statue's chest, directly on the place where human's heart was.

"We need explosives", Gaige muttered and started to dig up something from her bag.

Axton looked up at the statue, with worried look. "I have seen too much movies, which includes statues and somehow they always starts living", he said and was ready to deploy his turret.

"Nah, don't worry, Ax. You are just too paranoid", Gaige answered cheerfully, while she stuck the C4es to the statue's leg.

They backed to other side of the icy fortress and Gaige detonated the C4. There was a loud BOOM and then silence. The fortress was too thick to see through it, so they didn't see the statue. They walked back in front of the figure and looked at it leg, which was supposed to be gone, but it wasn't. There weren't any cracks, or even a scratch on the point where C4 had been.

"That's weird", Gaige muttered. Right when she was about to stick more explosives to statue's leg, something impossible happened. There was a weird sound, like rock had moved and they all looked up. The huge statue moved its head and looked down at them, with angry expression.

"You got to be kidding me!" Axton yelled and ran to other side of the fortress. Rest of the group were too astonished to move.

The statue's giant legs broke away from the icy ground, when it took one huge step forward. Finally group started backing away from the figure. They ran to other side of the fortress and suddenly they heard same kind of sound than before, but now it came behind them. They turned around and witnessed something, what made their situation even worst. Behind them were dozens of icy figures, but at least their were almost as tiny as them. They started approaching them, while the giant statue waited on other side of the fortress.

"Axton, I won't underestimate your feelings never again", Gaige breathed. He raised her hand and summoned her robotic friend. Deathtrap appeared in front of them and started shooting its lasers at the tinier statue's direction. Couple of them broke into several icy pieces to the ground.

Then other's took their guns and started shooting. Axton's turret shot its missiles at the figures and Maya Phaselocked them one by one, but suddenly they looked like their number had increased more than reduced. Axton shot them with his shotgun beside his turret and Alice tried to protect them, best as she could. She took her Hellfire smg, and started to melt them. They all were too busy to focus on the giant behind them.

Suddenly there was a deafening sound like someone had rubbed the rock against other rock. The giant statue teared the fortress from the ground and their cover was gone. Gaige had seriously pissed it off.

"Holy shit! Why everything has to be so big?!" Gaige screamed, when she ran away from the giant's legs. It tried to smash them with its legs and hands, like they were only some kind of flies. She ran to other side of the area with following Deathtrap, but her way was blocked by tinier statues. Dt started shooting them out of their way and Gaige took out her rifle. Two statues appeared in front of her, out of nowhere and she almost ran over them. She stopped running and aimed to other's head. Bullets hit its stomach and made it fly backwards, even though they didn't quite hit its head, like she had aimed. It hit to the wall and then broke down to the ground. She turned to aim her second target, but suddenly something grabbed her shoulder and threw her to the ground. Her riffle flew into air somewhere and she couldn't find it anymore. She was about to stand up, but three statues appeared around her and were ready to hit her.

"Crap!" She closed her eyes and was ready to die, but suddenly the one in front of her broke to the ground. She opened her eyes and saw Deathtrap shooting other figure of those two who were left around her. She smiled proudly and stood up. She turned to face the last one.

"Don't screw with a girl and her robot!" She screamed and hit it straight to face with her robotic arm. Its head was fully destroyed and it fell dead to the ground. She turned around and smiled to her robot friend. "I need to build you an extra arm JUST for high-fives!" She cheered proudly.

Maya was Phaselocking those things on middle of the cave. She Phaselocked them and shoot them at the same time. Soon she noticed that she was surrounded by them. She took grenade and threw in on the ground. They looked it confused and one of them even grabbed it. Then it exploded to its face and killed several targets. Then there was only four left around her. She raised her left hand and Phaselocked one of them.

"This will hurt!" She said with angry tone and squeezed her raised hand. There was a huge fiery explosion, which pulled more figures closer to the burning orb. The fire melted the ice and afterwards it looked like slush.

Axton and Alice had more issues with dealing those tinier statues. Axton had run away from that giant's feet too, but unfortunately he had forgotten his turret. The giant icy leg had stepped straight on it and smashed it with its weight. He ran fast as he could and far as he could from the statue. Alice tried to defend her friend and made shields around him, every time when he were close to death. She had her legendary Hellfire and its was pretty good gun against those icy things. Sometimes that giant figure took them to its target and started to chase them, but they were too tiny to it. They ran around the area and more and more those icy figures appeared around them.

One of them appeared behind Alice and she didn't notice it. It grabbed another statue's broken leg from the ground and raised it into air.

"Alice!" Axton shouted, when he saw the statue, who was going to hit her with that leg. He took his rifle from his back and aimed the statue with it, but before he even had time to pull the trigger, its head was sliced away and separated from its body.

Alice turned around and saw Zer0 behind her. A **:) **emoticon flashed on his visor and then he disappeared somewhere. Axton shook his head and continued shooting those things.

"I miss Sal. He would be having fun right now", Axton muttered.

Zer0 was having fun too. There was so much things to kill, so he was too busy to think about everything what had happened. He sliced those things to half and moved all the time. There was some weird things about him. He didn't grow tired as fast as normal humans. He could run a lot without getting out of breath. He didn't even need to sleep and eat that much. He would get tired eventually, but only afterwards and not that quickly.

He appeared behind one icy statue and cut its head off. Then he turned around and threw couple of his kunais. They hit two statue's neck and sliced their head from their body. Few statues appeared in front of him and started walking towards him. He waved his sword in his hand, while grinning and prepared to strike. One of them started running towards him and tried to hit him. He ducked under the hand and swung his sword at its leg. The leg broke and it fell to the its knee. He backed a little and jumped on its shoulder. He jumped away, while the statue tried to stood up, threw his katana during the flight (which hit directly on one statue's face) and landed on the other statue's chest and made it crash from the jump's force. Then he deployed his hologram and ran invisible behind his next target. It tried to hit his hologram, but its hand went straight through it, until it fell to the ground, after Zer0 had sliced its head off. He turned around and saw, as the last icy figure tried to jump towards him with its one leg. That just looked stupid. He walked over the statue, which had his sword in its face and pulled it away. He looked at the statue, who had only one leg and it had its fits raised, like it wanted a fist fight. He chuckled and walked in front of it, hit it once and hard to its head and it fell to the ground.

"Sucker", he muttered. Suddenly he heard a loud smashing kind of sound and turned around. He saw that giant statue in front of him and it had just stepped on the tinier statue's bodies, which he had just killed. He backed away from the giant and hit his back to the icy wall. He was trapped. Fortunately, it hadn't noticed him yet. He looked at its giant legs and tried to find a way to escape. The statue was so big, so it could easily just step on him and make him a pancake, if he would try to run below its feet.

_Crap_, he thought, when the giant turned around and stepped forward. It raised its hands, ready to smash him with them. It looked down at him and suddenly lowered its hand. It leaned closer to him until its huge face was only couple feet away from him. It tilted its head and looked confused at him. This was weird. Why it didn't attack?

Suddenly it raised its hand and put it on its chest. The giant hand went though its icy skin and it pulled the Vault Key piece away from the chest. Zer0 looked at it confused, when it knelt in front of him and handed the piece over him. He hesitated for a moment and then reached his hand at the piece. The giant figure didn't move at all when he took the Vault Key piece from its hand.

"Thank... You?", He said haltingly and looked at the figure. It looked like it had smiled and then suddenly its hand started to crack. Soon the whole figure was cracking and huge ice pieces started to fall to the ground. It broke to million tiny pieces and then there was nothing else than broken ice.

Zer0 stood still for a long moment. He wasn't quite sure what had just happened. That icy thing had just handed the Key piece to him, but why? He looked at the icy dust on the ground and didn't know how to react to this. Why did it gave that piece to him? He felt, as the Vault Key piece started to burn his hand. His mind was empty and he couldn't even think any haikus right now. He threw the Vault Key piece to the ground and sighed.

"Zer0?" He heard Maya's voice behind him. She jogged next to him and saw the Vault Key piece on the ground. "What the hell was that? It just gave it to you", she said in disbelief.

Zer0 looked at the icy figure's body, or what was left from it. This ignorance started to get on his nerves. There was so much confusing things nowadays and it was making him insane. He didn't know what was going on anymore and it made him feel angry.

Gaige ran over the Vault Key piece and put it on his back with the other piece. They all stood there without saying anything. They all were too puzzled of the happenings and didn't know what to say. Every tinier statues had broke too, at the same time as the bigger one.

"We should stay here for the night", Axton finally cut the silence.

Others nodded for agreement and Gaige started to dig up something from her tiny bag. Axton, Alice and Maya looked with widened eyes, when some weird things started to come out of her bag. First she pulled few paper bags from his bag. There was one word on every bag's side; their names. They all had their own paper bags, which she shared to them. Inside of them were their favorite foods and drinks. Their eyes widened even more, when she started pulling five sleeping backs, matchbox and sticks of wood, which they could use to do campfire.

"Who the hell are you?" Axton asked amazed. "That bag is so tiny and you just pulled almost the whole Pandora from it... What else you have in there?"

Gaige smirked, while setting wood blocks to the ground. "That's a secret", she said teasingly.

Maya shook her head and chuckled. She walked over her and helped her to make campfire. Soon the fire mirrored from the icy walls and brightened the whole cave. They gathered around the fire and sat down. They all looked the dancing flames in silence and ate their foods. It was nice. There was dark and fire made scary looking shadows to the ice. It was great time for horror stories.

"Let's tell horror stories!" Gaige said excited. Everyone looked at her for a moment and then muttered something. She obviously thought that was an agreement. "Okay, I'll start." She thought for a moment something and then sat down closer to camp fire. Everyone looked at her and waited.

"Okay, I heard this from my grandmother. This is, said to be, a true story."

* * *

_There was a young girl, who lived in a lovely house in middle of nowhere with her parent. They were happy, almost too happy. They lived far away from cities. It was such a lovely place. They had their own garden, and boat. They lived a happy life in there and nothing couldn't go wrong. __Sometimes the little girl saw nightmares and her mother always comforted her. She was scared of monsters which lived under her bed. Her mother always said that there was nothing._

_This night she was seeing nightmares again. She was sitting on a boat with his father in middle of the night. She loved to spend time with her father. The river was dark and quiet. There weren't any waves and the moon brightened the water. She looked at the water and felt happy. She turned to look at her father, but suddenly he wasn't there anymore. He wasn't on the boat. Girl started to scream 'Daddy, daddy!' But no'one answered. Suddenly she was all alone on the boat, middle of the night and she wanted to go home. She started crying._

_Suddenly she woke up, screaming for mommy. It was only a nightmare, she realized. She stood up and wanted her mommy. She was scared of the monsters under her bed. Her mother had always looked under her bed and said: 'There's nothing.' The little girl knelt and looked under her bed. She didn't see anything. Her mommy had been right. _

_She was still scared about the dream, so she walked out of his room and wanted to find her parent. She looked all over their house, but couldn't find them. She walked to their bedroom and saw them sleeping on their bed. The air had become cold and foggy. It was dark and scary to the little girl. She walked next to the bed, and saw something on the mirror. It was her, but she didn't have face. _

_She started screaming, but her parent didn't wake up. Suddenly something came out of her parent's bed. It was a dark and big and it started to tear her under the bed. She screamed for mommy and daddy, but no-one could hear her. Soon she was gone._

_In the morning the girl's parents woke up, but they couldn't find their daughter. After many hours her mother went to her bed room and saw a steamy mirror, which had text on it 'Mommy, daddy, monsters are under your bed.' She knelt next to her bed and was scared about what she could find. Their daughter wasn't under their bed, there were only her bones and blood."_

* * *

Everyone looked at Gaige. Their expressions weren't that different. They were kind of shocked of the girl's fate. Axton, Maya and Alice had widened eyes and Zer0 had three dots on his visor. Everyone were quiet for a long moment.

"That was awful!" Maya said with censure tone. Gaige just shrugged without saying anything

"What happened then?" Axton asked suspiciously. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to know.

"Her parents moved away and every time when someone moved to their house, their kids were eaten by a monster, which hide under their parents bed. True story, happened in Eden-5."

Zer0 looked at her and raised his eyebrows. He didn't quite believe horror stories, but they were good entertainment. His own personal favorite was Slender Man, and he didn't have any idea why. Maybe he just liked that faceless creature. He noticed that his legs started to hurt from sitting and stood up. He was about to stretch his legs and take a walk, or something. He could think some kind of own horror story during the walk, which would freak out everyone. That sounded pretty amusing in his head.

Suddenly he felt that annoying burning on his left hand again. _Oh god, not again, _He muttered in his mind, while walking away from the group.

"Where is he going?" Gaige asked confused. They all looked at each other without answers.

* * *

Zer0 walked in the tunnel without destination. He wanted answers to his questions, but somehow knew that he couldn't get them from here. That was the sad fact, which was frustrating him too much. He took his glove from his hands and looked down those trails on it. He noticed the horrifying thing; they reached now almost his wrist and his skin started to darken around them. The sight made him shudder and he put his glove back. Maybe he could get answers from Tannis. She apparently knew many things...

"Zer0?" He heard Alice's voice behind him. _God damn, why everyone are following me nowadays? _He thought frustrated. He turned around and faced the siren.

"Why did you leave?" She asked with concern in her voice.

He sighed and closed his eyes. He was too tired to be interrogated. His hand felt a lot more awful now and he couldn't be in same "room" with those two Vault Key pieces. He wanted to take distance from them, otherwise he would probably puke all over the place and pass out.

"You have been acting strangely lately... Is there something wrong?" Siren questioned.

He was just about to answer when he heard footsteps behind them.

"What-..." Zer0 cut Alice's sentence with his hand on her mouth. Her eyes widened and she was almost about to piss off again. Zer0 put his index finger to his lips and pointed at the tunnel behind her. She could hear someone's annoyed talking from there.

"Torgue is a lot better weapon manufacturer than Tediore. They deal explosive damage, for God's sake", the low voice said frustrated.

"Yeah, but Tediore's guns explodes like grenade, when reloaded!" The younger and a lot shriller voice argued back. The duo of blacksoldiers walked toward them and didn't even notice, that someone was standing in front of them. They didn't wear their helmets, so it was easy to read them. The Torgue-fan was a lot older than the other blacksoldier and he looked a bit crabby. Other one was young, almost a kid. What the hell was that kind of boy doing in Captain's force?

They argued about the weapons until the older one raised his gaze. "Crap!" he said and raised his Torgue shotgun and fired at them with it. His eyes widened, when he noticed the shield around the two Vault Hunters, which blocked his shot.

Zer0 shook his head. He took one of his kunais and threw it to the older one's direction. It hit the man's neck and he fell to the ground motionless. The younger blacksoldier looked like he didn't know that should he shoot them, or ran away. He decided to raise his rifle, but before he made to pull the trigger, Zer0 appeared behind him and he could feel his sword's blade pressing on his back.

"Don't. Move", he said with cold tone, which gave shivers to Alice. Boy froze by that and slowly lowered his rifle. He was shaking from the fear and threw his gun to the ground.

"Good. Now, is anyone else here, beside you?" He asked calmly. Somehow he sounded too calm and it freaked the hell out off Alice.

Boy shook his head frantically. "N-no! Just me and Fred... Please don't kill me!" Boy was obviously terrified and he looked like he was going to throw up, or something even worst. Alice walked in front of him and frowned.

"How old are you?" She asked softly. She didn't want to scare him like Zer0 did. This was like Good cop, Bad god. Kind of hilarious, when she thought it afterwards.

Boy was too scared to even look at her. "E-Eighteen. Please don't kill me!" He cried.

Alice was just about to answer, when Zer0 cut her again. "That's not an option." This was starting to be too frustrating to him. He didn't like that kind of humans, who got so scared so easily. It just made them look like cowards. They were just disgusting. For example this boy was almost wetting his pants and he hadn't even done anything yet. This was why he liked psychos more than normal humans. He could remember, as almost all humans who he had assassinated, had cried and prayed for mercy. They didn't have guts to fight back, and that was the only thing what he wanted.

Alice turned to look at him with furious look, as the young blacksoldier started crying. "Zer0! He's just a kid!" She shouted angrily.

Zer0 rolled his eyes behind his helmet. "Age doesn't matter. He is going to run away and tell everything to Captain. Then we are under attack."

Boy shook his head furiously. "No! I don't tell anything, I swear! Please let me go!"

Zer0 looked at the boy disgusted. That kind of man wasn't even worth to life. "Zer0..." he heard, as Alice started. She couldn't finish, as he stabbed the boy's back with his sword.

"NO!" Alice screamed, when the young blacksoldier fell to the ground and stayed there motionless. She knelt in front of his body and tried to stop his bleeding. Zer0 shook his head annoyed.

"That's unnecessary, he's already dead", he said calmly. Alice turned to look at him and he noticed tears flowing on her cheeks. Why everyone were crying nowadays for so stupid reasons? He couldn't understand it. Well, how he even could understand? He had grown to be cold and heartless. He wouldn't much of an assassin with that kind of feelings.

"He was just a kid!" Alice screamed furiously.

Zer0 shook his head again. This was why he liked Salvador. That midget just didn't care who he was killing and didn't cry about it afterwards. "Yes, but unworthy to live." He started walking away from the angry siren. He just wanted to sleep. All of this was just too much to him. Maybe he was wrong, when he thought of staying Sanctuary.

"You are a monster!" Alice's voice screamed to his back.

He stopped walking immediately and looked into the dark tunnel. He didn't know why, but he didn't like at all, when someone called him a monster. There were people, who were even worst than him. Handsome Jack had been a monster, but now he was dead. He had killed thousands of humans and creatures. Every time, when someone called him a monster, he just snapped. Maybe his behaviour made him a monster, but still.

He turned around and looked at Alice. He walked in front of her and smiled behind his helmet. A smiling emoticon appeared on his visor, when he leaned closer to Alice. "You should watch out your tone, before someone will silence you", he said with his calm monotone voice.

Alice looked at his visor, to the point where he eyes were. She looked calm, but Zer0 knew that she was scared. "Was that a threat?" She asked and tried to hide her shakiness.

The Assassin smiled amused behind his visor. "Smart girl."

Alice lowered her gaze and then backed away. Without saying anything, she walked away and left him alone in the tunnel.

Zer0 sighed. He would probably hear about this from Maya or someone. He didn't care that much, but it was going to be annoying as hell. He looked at the tunnel and sighed again. He should go to sleep. He felt like he hadn't slept for ages and he was pretty tired. Everything was so confusing to him. What was happening to him? Why he was feeling so weird, when he was near that annoying siren? Too much questions, for God's sake. He was going insane. It would be hilarious, if he would hear some voices in his head. That would be the top of the iceberg. He would probably shot himself, if that would happen.

He started walking toward the direction, where Alice had gone. She was probably sleeping by now, so he couldn't apologize. Why would he even apologize? He hadn't killed her friend or something.

Soon he arrived to their temporary camp and sat down on his sleeping back. The fire was almost flaming out and the cave was now darker than before. Other Vault Hunters were sleeping around the campfire, while he just sat there. Alice was lying in her own sleeping back and looked like she was already sleeping. He could hear her soft breathing, as the fire made thin shadows to the icy walls. They looked like dancing figures.

Suddenly he heard a strange sound, like bounding heart. He checked his pulse and noted, that it wasn't his heartbeat. He looked around him and his eyes catched Gaige's bag. _Could it be?_ He stood up and walked silently next to Gaige and her bag. He ducked down and pulled those two Vault Key pieces from it. He looked at them, and he heard as the heartbeat started to get noisier. He could feel, as they throbbed a little like bounding heart. The sound started to get more louder in every second. It almost hurt his ears and he forced himself to put them back to the back. He still heard the sound, when he backed away quickly.

Now he was sure about it. He was starting to be insane. His felt an awful headache on back of his head and he had to hold his head with his hands. _If Tannis doesn't know what's going on, I'm screwed,_ He thought. _Okay, okay, she knows. I'm sure of it... I just need to sleep. _He laid down on his sleeping back and closed his eyes. He just needed to sleep. _Everything is going to be better tomorrow... _

_**Or is it... **_A low resounding voice said. He opened his eyes immediately and looked around him. Who the hell had just spoken? He looked at his surroundings. He looked at the Vault Hunters and the shadows on the walls. He couldn't see anybody, but he could swear that someone had just spoken. But after all, there was no-one.

* * *

**As you can see, Zer0 is still that same mysterious and cold-hearted assassin. I don't want to make him that Good cop kind of person. **

**-Thanks again about reading this and other that kind of stuff! Love ya!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 - Vincent**

It had been three days since the incidents of Sanctuary. While the Vault Hunters were sleeping in Three Horns - Divide, Lilith and her group were traveling to warn them about the mysterious masked man. They hadn't heard anything about them since Zer0 touched that Fast Travel (even thought they didn't have any idea what was going on). They had noticed that Fast Travels weren't working and then they started to think something else; What if New-U stations weren't working either? It was horrifying thought.

There was other question into air too. Why they couldn't see other Vault Hunters on their map? What if they were already dead? They couldn't even Echo them, and that made them all feel nervous. They needed to hurry, if they wanted to find them before that masked man. They were strong, but he had thrown Brick through the wall, so could they even have a chance against him?

Salvador's feelings were probably worst. He hadn't left with them and now he blamed himself. If Vault Hunters in Three Horns - Divide were hurt, it was somehow his fault. He had been so tensed all the time and he couldn't just stay put. He wanted to find his friends soon as possible.

Lilith in other hand, was too confused to think anything. She still wasn't quite sure what had happened in Sanctuary. She felt horrible, when she realized that she had teleported that man somewhere, while she could had just imprison him. But somehow he didn't know if she even want to imprison him. There was just too much confusing thing in Pandora nowadays.

Lilith, Brick, Salvador and Mordecai were traveling through the Pandora with their Bandit Technical. They didn't have any actual destination. What if the Vault Hunters in Three Horns - Divide had already found the second piece of Vault Key? They didn't have any idea where they would be. They had only to hope that masked man didn't know either.

* * *

Aforesaid masked man wasn't feeling that better. When Lilith had teleported him, he had been furious and after that and after that some weird shit had happened. First he had been in Sanctuary and suddenly he was standing middle of the Lynchwood. Then he had almost crashed to meaty soap, when train was about to hit him. Then there was several blacksoldiers, some freaky teddy bear, that he almost shot in the face and that annoying girl... Who was annoyingly talkative and smart. He wasn't the most social person, which made his situation even worst.

He had a big teddy bear in his hands and he looked at it irritated. It had a huge tab eyes and it was seriously freaking the hell out of him. It looked like it was always watching him and it was making him a pretty uncomfortable.

Maybe we should begin from the start, before we continue. Three days ago:

The masked man looked at his hands after that red-haired siren had teleported him to Lynchwood. There had been a purple flash and then he suddenly appeared middle of the Main Street. He was standing on the railway and looked around him. There was no-one. He wasn't that confused about the happenings in Sanctuary. He had just met the most gorgeous woman, who was incredibly good fighter. That was one thing what he liked about the women in Pandora. They were a lot tougher than many men what he had met. They didn't seem to scare almost anything.

Suddenly he heard a weird sound from behind him, like some vehicle had honked and turned around. His eyes widened, when he noticed the shockingly fast approaching train, few meters away from him. There was a red flash and he disappeared in front of the train.

There was something different about him than normal humans. He didn't make himself invisible and he wasn't that fast by himself. He was quick, but only because he could change the time around him. It was a bit confusing first, and kind of hard to explain. He just slowed the time and other people around him, and then he was so fast that everyone could see only the flash of him when he moved, and disappeared from the sight. That's how he was almost invisible. He didn't use any magic, like sirens did. It was built to his body somehow and he wasn't quite sure how. He just knew how to use it. It was his own personal skill, and he liked to call it the 'Timing'.

Tenth of seconds later he appeared next to railway. He had just fought against the Vault Hunters, who had defeated monsters in the Vault, and now he had almost died, when that train was about to hit him. It sounded funny, but it wasn't. He didn't even chuckle. He needed to be more careful.

"Who the hell are you?" He heard a male voice behind him. That voice belonged to blacksoldier, who had just came out of the one building. He looked at the masked man astonished, like he was a seventh miracle, or something. Those guys were just too dumb. They probably had couple screws loose in their heads.

"Hey, guys! Here's some freak! We could steal his money!" He shouted exited.

That guy was obviously too stupid to watch out his words. The masked man seriously hated, when someone called him a freak and that happened pretty often. He didn't usually hurt innocent people, but he hated that kind of arrogant persons and usually something just snapped in his head and everyone in the same area ended up dying (as you might remember in the chapter 4, when he killed everyone in that pub..). This time there were only blacksoldiers, so it wasn't that bad. He would just kill everyone.

"Nice swords. I would like to have those", a new voice said next to him.

When did they become that kind of bandits? They used to be soldiers and this was starting to annoy him too much. Then suddenly there were seven blacksoldiers around him. Did they try to bully him or something? Because that wouldn't never work out. He sighed tiredly and looked at the blacksoldier, who was directly in front of him. That man didn't have his helmet on, and he saw his cocky grin on his face.

"Give us your money and those swords, so we don't hurt you", he said with arrogant tone. Hurt him? Seriously? And how on Earth he thought to do that?

Masked man let out an amused chuckle. This man obviously tried to play that though guy. Very well, he would play along. Blacksoldier scowled at him. He pointed at him with his finger and poked his chest with it. "What the hell are you laughing?"

Masked man smiled behind his mask. This was going to be fun. Blacksoldier's finger stayed on his chest. Before that fool made to realize what had happened, he grabbed his forearm with his other hand and shoulder with other, and snapped it to wrong side. Blacksoldier started to scream hysterically and backed away from him. His hand had turned to wrong side at the elbow and its bones were sticking out, while his forearm was hanging and almost detached. He turned to look back at the masked man.

"Kill him!" He screamed and pointed at him with his rifle. Other blacksoldiers took their rifles and started shooting at him, but suddenly he wasn't standing on the same place anymore. They looked around them with confused minds.

"What the hell? Where is he?!" One of them shouted. They all turned around and looked at each other. Suddenly one of them noticed the red flash behind the blacksoldier, who was standing next to him. A black sword pierced his chest and he fell to the ground. They all started shooting like maniacs, to man's direction, but now he was gone again. They all looked terrified, when they started to fall on the ground, one by one, and there wasn't anything to shoot.

Then there was only two left. Other one looked around them and tried to find something to aim, while the other was almost crying. A crying blacksoldier stumbled over the one body and fell to the ground. That creepy masked man appeared next to him. He shook his head frustrated and pierced his head with his sword. The last one who was left backed away from the man and took out his rifle. Suddenly that masked man appeared directly in front of him. He raised his rifle, but didn't have time to shoot, when the man grabbed its pipe and yanked it away from his hands. He threw the rifle to the ground and then grabbed man from his collar. Blacksoldier let out a yell and tried to fumble his knife from his belt. He got the knife and stabbed the man's shoulder with it... Or at least he tried to stab it. There was a loud clang, like he had just stabbed a metal or something. He looked at the knife in horror, when he noticed that its blade had folded.

"What the hell are you!?" He screamed and tried to struggle away from him.

Masked man tilted his head a little and smiled behind his helmet. Then he grasped the blacksoldier's head and just snapped his head off. His body fell to the ground, while his head stayed in man's hands. He looked at the head thoughtfully and held it with his both hands.

**Human body is so fragile, **he said and looked in the head's dead eyes. **How fascinating. **He threw the head from the ground, next to its body.

Suddenly he noticed some movement in the window, from building next to him. He took out his pistol and started walking toward the building's front door. He didn't like guns, and that pistol was only his backup weapon. Everything ended too soon with them and he wanted to feel the pain of his foes. That's why he liked his swords more. He walked inside the building ad noticed that it had been someone's home. There were some nice furnitures and pictures from the family. He took one picture from the table and looked at it. There was a beautiful brown-haired woman, with brown eyes. Next to her was standing a man, who looked somehow strangely familiar. He was somewhere around thirties, he had brown hair and blue eyes and he had a little girl on his shoulders. They all looked happy.

There was a soft sound from upstairs, like someone had walked. He put the picture back to its place and walked over the stairs. There was couple rooms in upstairs, but he decided to walk in the room, which door was wide open. It was weird room. Walls were bright blue colored and there were couple clouds painted on it. There was a tiny bed and a lot of toys and pillow on it, old box-looking computer on the corner and a lot of more toys on the blue floor. It was obviously a child's room.

There was something on the floor, which stick up to his eyes. He looked at the thing with confused feelings. It was brown and fluffy. It had two half round ears on top of its head, two tab eyes, weird mouth, which looked like number 3 upside down and tiny nose. It looked like it was watching him and he felt shivers on his back. It was a creepy thing. It looked like a tiny bear. He grabbed it from the floor, and held it with both hands. Then he noticed the pink text on its tummy; _**'Press this'. **_He looked at it for a long moment. Should he press it? What would be the worst what could happen? He hesitated a while, not knowing that should he do it, until he raised his hand a little and pressed it.

"Hug me! hug me!" It shouted happily. His eyes widened from shock and he dropped the bear to the floor. It continued shouting those same words, while he took out his pistol and pointed its head with it. It didn't stop shouting and he didn't know what to do with it. Should he just shoot it?

"What are you doing with Mr. Softy?" Some random voice said from the door. He turned to look at the direction, while still aiming at the bear's head. He looked at the person puzzled and noticed her amused expression. What was so funny about this?

"You know it's just a stuffed animal, right?" She asked. She was a cute and tiny human, very tiny. She was maybe six or seven years old and she had short blonde hair and boyish clothes. She looked at him amused with her big blue eyes. Those eyes were amazing and the color was really bright. He recognized the girl from the picture.

He lowered his pistol and turned to look back at the animal. **It is... A toy? **He asked, even though he knew that no-one could answer. No-one could hear him, and he actually didn't even know why. Probably someone had forgotten install the 'speaking' to him.

"Yes, it's a toy", Girl said and raised her eyebrows.

He turned to look at her with widened eyes. Had she just answered to him? No-one could never hear him, so what the hell was this? **You can hear me? **He asked, just to make sure, that he wasn't imaging everything.

Girl frowned and looked at him confused. "Well, duh."

**This is unusual, **the masked man said thoughtfully. He walked in front of the girl and leaned closer to her. This was starting to be interesting. **Tell me, what is your intelligence quotient?**

Girl looked his mask and raised her eyebrows again. "Dunno. I'm just six years old."

**I may have answer to this. My brains are most likely transmitting something, maybe codes and somehow you can understand it. This is very fascinating. **He looked in her eyes, like he was trying to find answers from there. It obviously didn't work.

"A guess you are not a human?" She noted.

**Correct.** This girl was smart. Well, she had to be, because she could understand him. This all was new to him. He hadn't never met a child, and this was starting to be almost too interesting to him.

"So what are you then?"

He thought that for a while. Was she smart enough to understand, or should he try to explain it with a simpler way. **I am an artificial intelligence.**

Girl looked at him puzzled. She obviously hadn't any idea what that was. "You say what?"

He looked at her. Was she serious? **Artificial Intelligence, or AI is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software... **He stopped in middle of his sentence, when he noticed the girl's puzzled expression. She didn't have any idea what he was talking about. **With the simpler way then,** he muttered and shook his head. He looked at the room and tried to think something. Then he noticed the old computer on the table. **Computer, which is programmed to do something, **he said finally. Well, that was probably the simplest way ever.

Girl's expression brightened, when she finally understood something. She nodded happily. She grabbed the teddy bear and held it like it was a baby. Then she started to pack her backpack for some reason. There had been a several blacksoldiers outside the building and she was there all alone, and she didn't look scared at all, like she wasn't worried about anything. Why she was alone in the place like this?

**Excuse me, but where are your guardians? **He questioned, while the girl took couple of her toys from the bed and put them in the backpack.

"My parents? I haven't seen daddy for a while, but uncle-John, Angus and Audrey went to find food and that kind of stuff, and left me with Dukino", she answered without any worried tone. She probably thought that everything was alright. She took her bag and put it to her back.

**May I ask, when that happened?**

"Yesterday. They told me to stay with Dukino, but I wanted to find Mr. Softy. And now I have him!" She said and looked proudly at Mr. Softy. She hugged it like kids usually did and petted it.

The masked man nodded and then turned around. He was just about to leave that place and continue to find Alice, when that girl grabbed his gloved hand. He turned to look at the girl and frowned behind his mask. **What are you doing? **He asked confused and pulled his hand away from her.

"Aren't you going to help me find uncle-John? She looked at him with her big lovely blue eyes and smiled adorably. Well, it wasn't adorable to him, because ... He just didn't feel the same stuff as humans did.

**No,** he just said with a cold tone. Girl looked up at him and her eyes were widened from the shock.

"You can't just leave me here alone!" She yelled sadly and took his hand again.

He shook his head and pulled his hand away. **Yes, I can. I am programmed to kill, not to babysit**, he answered. He didn't feel any sympathy for this girl. Those feelings weren't installed to his brains, so he couldn't feel almost anything. That girl was just another annoying pain in the ass.

He turned around again and walked away from the girl. He could hear as she started to cry, but didn't turn back. He walked outside and sighed. He had thought that there had been someone to fight with, and he had been horribly wrong. Now he just needed to find Alice somehow and he didn'teven have any idea where she and her friends would be. It was just an annoying fact. He should get that Echo Device thing, what the Vault Hunters and Crimson Raiders used. He could hack in their system and locate them... He smiled to his idea. When he would have Echo Device, he would be one step closer of finding Alice and eliminate her once and for all. He would enjoy that.

Suddenly he noticed that he had almost ram over someone. He raised his head and looked at the big bonebreaker in front of him. He took his other sword from his back and pointed at the bonebreaker with it. That piece of boulder looked like he wanted to eat him. They all looked a pretty insane, like someone (Captain) had messed with their brains too much. He raised his hammer, and was about to hit him again with it. He waved the hammer quickly, but suddenly there was only a red flash, when he disappeared away from it. The hammer hit the wall and got stuck in it. He ran behind the bonebreaker, that fast that he didn't even see him doing that and stabbed his back with his black sword. He pulled his sword away and kicked the bonebreaker's back and sent him flying forward.

Then there was a loud scream, which came from the girl's home. He turned to look at the door, but couldn't see anything. That girl was in some kind of trouble, and somehow he felt a little worried about her. But why? He wasn't supposed to feel anything. Something was going on and that girl was probably going to die, if he wouldn't help her. He felt the sharp pain on his back, as someone hit him with something and it sent him sway forward. He recovered quickly and turned around to face the bonebreaker and his hammer again. He had been too focused of thinking that girl and he would had probably died, if he would be a normal human.

**Piece of shit, **he said crossly. That bonebreaker didn't obviously know what would happen if he would enrage him. He didn't even bother to take his swords from his back. There was a red flash as he tackled the piece of boulder, and they both flew through the stony wall. They both stood up at the same time and the bonebreaker tried to hit him with his huge fist. He dodged the hit and ran next to him. Then he hit him hard to his chest, and the blood shattered all over his mask. He hit him so hard, that his fist went straight through the bonebreaker's chest. He fell to the ground next to his hammer and looked pretty dead. Apparently there was another weak spot, at least if you hit hard enough.

"Help!" He heard the girl's scream from upstairs. He ran that fast, that it almost looked like he had teleported to kid's room. He saw four blacksoldiers and one of them tried to grab the girl, who was hiding under her bed. One of them took his rifle and aimed the girl with it. That sight made him feel a weird rage. They all were looking at the girl, and hadn't noticed him yet. He stepped a few steps forward and hit one of the blacksoldiers to the back of his head. Strength of the hit broke the blacksoldier's helmet and probably killed him instantly. Two of them turned around and pointed their guns at him. He disappeared from their sight and appeared behind them. He grabbed their both heads and knocked them together. Then he turned the face the last blacksoldier, who was holding the girl and pointing his pistol to the girl's head.

"Don't move, or I'm going to blow her brains out", he warned him and looked pretty scared.

That blacksoldier didn't even had a time to pull the trigger. Suddenly the masked man appeared in front of him, grabbed his hand and turned the gun to aim to his neck. He was about to scream something, but accidentally pulled the trigger and shot himself. He fell to the floor, next to his friend's bodies.

He looked at the bodies and felt disgusted. They were about to kill an innocent little Child, and that was just sick. He turned to look at the girl, who was sitting on the ground and cried from the fear.

**Are you hurt? **He asked and leaned closer to her. She didn't have any wounds, but maybe she was mentally unstable right now. She was still crying, and too sad and scared to answer. Suddenly she stood up and wrapped her hands around his stomach (she was too short to hug anything else). His eyes widened and he froze for a long moment. That wasn't the reaction what he had expected. He had thought that she was going to run away or something, but instead of that she had hugged him.

A couple of minutes later, he started to feel too uncomfortable and backed away from the girl. She was still crying, but didn't look that scared anymore. **What is your name? **He asked softly. He didn't want to scare that girl, so he tried to be that kind as he could.

Girl wiped the tears away from her face. "Hayden", she answered and sniffled. She looked up at him with her sad eyes. "Are you going to leave me here again?"

He looked at her for several minutes. His brains started to tick and he tried to think. That girl was probably going to be a pain in the ass, but she might get hurt again if he would leave her here. He somehow knew that her uncle wasn't coming back for her. He didn't know what to do anymore, but he didn't want to leave her die.

**No. You will come with me... **He looked at Hayden, who started to smile brightly. At least now she was happy. He held out his hands. **We will find your uncle together.**

"Do you promise?" That was though question. If he promised something, he would never break the promise and now he had to decide what to do.

**Yes, I promise.**

Hayden took his hand and smiled happily. They started walking away from her home, hand in hand. When they were outside, she turned to look at the building. She apparently knew that she wasn't going to see that house again and smiled sadly. She hugged Mr. Softy with her another hand. Then suddenly she turned to look up at the masked man with confused face.

"What's your name? She asked.

He didn't answer immediately. He looked at the girl, while walking and started to think her question. He didn't have name, or at least he didn't know it. Everyone had always called him 'you' or a freak, but no-one had ever called him with using some sort of name.

**I do not own a name, **he answered finally.

Hayden looked at him shocked and widened eyes. "What? How is that possible? Everyone should have a name!"

He continued walking, without answering. It sounded crazy, but she was right. He was fed up to be called 'you'. It felt stupid every time, when someone used it.

"Okay! Let's think." She looked at him very rigorously. "You look like Vincent", she said after a while and made him frown. He didn't even know who that was, or if that even was a person.

"Hey, Vincent? Yeah, that sounds right!" She said proudly. He, from now on called Vincent shook his head for an answer. That girl was starting to annoy him.

"Why do you talk like old people?" Hayden asked.

He let out an annoyed sound. This was going to be annoying trip. What the hell was he thinking, when he made that promise?

* * *

**Alright, here it is, the ninth chapter. Thank you for reviews and reading this! **

**I'm going to start the next chapter immediately! See ya soon :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hey, I'm back. Thank you so much for reviews and follows etc. :) **

**Anyone else than Hayden doesn't call Vincent to Vincent (yet), so in this chapter when someone else calls him that, that's just because I don't want to call him 'the masked man' all the time. So much call-words in that sentence... **

**Sorry, if there's some mistakes of spelling. I was horribly tired when I spell checked this.**

**But now, to my lovely readers and creatures; ****Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 10 - ****The Highlands And Unexpected Things**

_Alice was standing in the big room, which looked like office. That room looked nice. There was an expensive looking furnitures; big mahogany table and shelves. After all, that room looked a pretty cozy. A middle-aged man was sitting on a big leather chair, behind the table and was reading a book. He had small glasses, short brown hair and expensive clothes. He had tiny wrinkles in corner of his eyes, like he had smiled a lot, when he had been younger, and he looked nice and kind._

"_Did you hear about Handsome Jack?" He asked, without raising his gaze away from the book._

"_Yes, sir. Vault Hunters apparently killed him", she answered. This was obviously a memory again, and she couldn't do anything. Her body was moving and she was speaking without her own will. _

"_Good. He was a dick anyway", man said and chuckled._

_She chuckled too. It was the best thing what had happened for a while. He had been a horrible head of Hyperion. He had killed so much people, and she was more than relieved when he was gone._

"_I did a huge mistake when I promoted him to Hyperion's president", her boss said. She had figured out, that he was her boss. It just made more sense. She had just called her sir, so he had to be._

"_Well, he was still your brother", she noted. Her eyes would've widened if she would've even moved. _Did I just said what I think I said? _She thought. _

"_Yeah... We weren't that close", man behind the giant desk muttered. _

_So, her former boss had been Jack's brother? What the hell? But he didn't even look like him and he was kind and... Suddenly there was a loud knock from the door. She turned around and saw that creepy masked man coming in. He walked past her and didn't even paid attention to her. He walked next to her boss and handed him a paper. Man frowned and read the paper._

"_Explosion on downstairs? What on Earth is going on down there?" He muttered. Then he turned to look at Alice and had now more serious expression. "You can go to check that out, if you don't have anything else to do", man said tiredly to them. _

_Alice turned to look at __the masked man__, who nodded__ to her__ for agreement. They left the room__,__ and walked together __in front of the same looking elevator, where she had been in her previous dream. They stood in the elevator with silence surrounding them, and Alice felt little too awkward on that point. She glanced the man with corner of her eye. He looked creepy, but she wasn't scared at all. Maybe he was her friend or something. __Then there was a sudden explosive outside the elevator, which made the whole elevator sway. They both jumped from surprise, and took their guns. She had some poor looking smg, but Vincent had a cool looking purple pistol. It was the Maggie. _Oh my god, that's so cool, _she heard her own thoughts saying. The Maggie was a legendary pistol, manufactured by Jakobs. It was extremely powerful and it was capable of high damage output in close quarters. She didn't have any idea of how she even knew all that stuff. Maybe she had been some kind of gun expert in her previous life, before she forgot everything. __Their elevator's door opened and they couldn't see anything else than smoke around them. There were some weird noises and they walked slowly towards them. She saw something dark, which was approaching them quickly. She heard a sigh next to her, and saw as Vincent shook his head frustrated, while he lowered his pistol. Then she noticed someone in front of them. It was Captain, and she had some weird and proud smile on her face._

"_What is going on?" She heard herself asking. She wanted to shoot that bitch right now, but instead her hands lowered the smg._

_Captain smiled to her and chuckled. "We were doing some awesome experiments", she said, and pointed her face with her index finger. "Shoot me! C'mon, shoot me!" She demanded excited. _

_Alice would have wanted to shoot her right in the face, but she was unable to move. Instead of that she looked at the Captain with astonished expression. She was just about to ask that what the hell she was talking about, when she saw as that masked man took his pistol immediately, and shot to Captain's direction. She let out a surprised yell, but then she noticed as the bullet hit something invisible in front of her and fell to the ground._

"_..What?" She asked at the same time, when Vincent started to shoot her again. He stopped and looked horribly frustrated, while Captain was giggling proudly._

"_A perfect shield!__ Even your precious Maggie, or any else legendary weapon can't get through it!" She said and tapped the green shield on her belt. It looked nice and expensive. "We were testing it with explosives and different elemental effects on it, and it passed them all! Except for shock, we didn't have time to test that... Now I just need to name it." _

"_Oh", Alice muttered at the same time, when Vincent shook his head and left them together. _

"_I don't like that guy", Captain said and looked pretty annoyed._

_Alice just chuckled and shrugged her shoulders. "I think he's nice - Little too quiet tho'..." She looked at the Captain and smiled, while she actually wanted to kill her, but unfortunately this was just her memory, so she couldn't do anything. "You just don't like him, because he's higher in rank than you."_

_She snorted something for answer, and suddenly everything started to fade away. Alice looked confused around her, and realized that now she could move again. T__here was a flash and she noticed that she wasn't__ in that same place__ anymore. Now she was standing in middle of a poor looking village. _

"_Hello?"_

_ There was too quiet and she couldn't see anyone. Buildings around her were just poor and burned shacks, and somehow she knew, that they weren't always like this. There had been kind families, and kids running happily together. __Then she heard someone screaming and turned around. She yelled from shock, when she saw a kid on the ground, laying on the big pile of bodies. There was blood everywhere, and she had to close her eyes. This was too much, and she wanted to wake up. She backed away, and her back hit something soft. She turned around and looked at the dusty looking woman, who had fallen to the ground, when she had accidentally hit her. That woman had blood on her hair and face, and when she raised her head, her eyes widened and she started to scream hysterically to her or someone who was behind her. She turned around and faced Maggie's pipe in front of her face, and that masked man who was holding it, and ready to pull the trigger. She heard a loud bang and everything went black._

* * *

Alice opened her eyes shocked and looked around her. Vault Hunters were already awake and packing their stuffs. She was shaking and felt cold. _He killed them all.. But why? I don't understand..__. _She tried to shake that dream away from her head, but she couldn't think anything else. Those bodies were stuck in her mind now, and she felt like she wanted to throw up.

"Did you sleep well?" She heard Maya's friendly voice next to her.

"No.. I just saw a weirdest dream ever. There was Captain and that creepy masked dude and they both were my friends... A guess", she said quickly. Her words made them all look at her confused.

"What?" Axton asked puzzled.

Alice sighed and closed her eyes. She tried to put those puzzles back to their places, but it was too hard. She didn't remember anything, and those dreams were confusing her even more. "Okay... My former boss was Handsome Jack's brother, and he was Captain's boss too... I have seen some fucking freaky dreams and there's always some weird masked guy, and in that last dream he shot me..."

"So, that was a memory?" Gaige asked, while she put other's sleeping bags back to her tiny bag. They had already put out their campfire, and looked like they were only waiting for her.

"Jack has a brother?" Axton said jaded. They all were thinking the same; Jack's brother had to be as dick as Jack. But this time they were wrong.

"He was nice and friendly... I think", she muttered. She stood up and picked her sleeping bag. She handed it to Gaige, and then they were finally ready to leave that icy place. They had only one problem. There were two exits, which both were those same kind of annoying tunnels. Other was on their left, and other one on the right side. They were directly opposite to each other.

"Which way?" Gaige asked and looked at the others.

Alice took her map and looked at it. They had come from that other tunnel, which was on their right side, and that was apparently dead-end. The left tunnel, on other hand seemed to be the right direction. Suddenly she startled, and almost jumped from surprise, when she noticed Zer0, who had appeared next to her, without any sound.

"Left?" He asked softly, and almost too friendly. There was even a smiling emoticon on his dark visor. Alice was getting pretty confusing feelings. Just yesterday he had threatd her, and now suddenly he was that kind. She was starting to be frustrated of his mood swings. She glanced at him carefully, with a weird confusion, and then nodded.

"Yeah..." she muttered. He nodded, and they started walking towards that tunnel. They walked for a while, until they finally arrived outside.

"Strange", Zer0 said thoughtfully, and they all knew what he meant.

Now when they all were out of the icy cave, they noticed a very strange thing. There wasn't snow on the ground at all, like earlier, and now instead of that there was only grass. Alice hadn't seen ever grass in Pandora and it looked nice. She saw a flying Sanctuary in the sky and skag piles on the ground.

"Impossible..." Zer0 muttered next to her and turned to look look at the others. "We are in the Highlands."

"Wait what..? How is that possible?" Gaige asked confused. They had just been in Three Horns - Divide, and now that tunnel had brought them here. They all looked at each others, and no-one had any kind of answers. Weird things happened on Pandora, indeed. And the weirdest thing was that, their icy tunnel was almost straight next to the Overlook, and they hadn't ever noticed it. Or maybe it hadn't ever even existed until now. They walked in front of the town's Fast Travel. Now they were finally ready to go to Sanctuary. They all kept their hopes up, when Gaige was trying to fast travel them away from that place. Their hopes faded away as quickly as they came, when they realized that they weren't moving anywhere.

"Gaige?" Maya asked hesitatingly.

They looked as Gaige stood in front of the Fast Travel and pressed its screen several times, until she almost started punching it. "Great. We can't even fly, so how the hell we are going to go to home?!" She shouted frustrated. She was more than frustrated. She was starting to be sick and tired of that and every else place where they had already been. She wanted to go to shower, and to her own bed, but of course that wasn't possible.

"Uh... Vault Hunters?" Said a kind of shy and soft voice behind them. They turned to look at the woman, who was standing next to one tiny house. She had brown hair and a ribbon, which was made from flowers on her head.

"Hey, Karima", Maya said happily, and walked in front of her. Rest of them followed behind.

"Are you in hurry?" She asked softly.

They all turned to look at the fast travel, and Gaige was the first who said what they all were thinking. "Not anymore, because that Fast Travel isn't working", she muttered.

Karima looked at the Fast Travel surprised. "What? That was working two hours ago."

Alice looked at Maya who was standing next to her, and saw as she looked at the Fast Travel too in wonder. They were probably thinking the same, when they all turned to look at Gaige and her bag. What tho Vault Key pieces were causing all their problems? Like when those were near the Fast Travels, they weren't somehow working. That sounded stupid, but it was one of the possibilities. They should test that later.

Then Maya turned to look at Karima again. "Why are you asking? Is something wrong?" She asked.

"Well, yes. Earlier someone stole our shield's generator, and without it our shied don't work", she answered with quiet tone. They all knew what that meant.

"Do you know who stole it?" Axton asked.

Karima shook her head. "No... I haven't seen them before. They had white clothes and helmets."

"Uh... She's talking about whitestrikers, right?" Gaige said with careful tone and looked kind of scared right now. Well, whitestrikers were those tougher ones. They all nodded slowly and looked at each other in worry.

"Five of them came here and took the generator. They went to the old Hyperion outpost nearby. I think there might be more of them." Karima pointed at the building , which was standing on a big cliff, next to the Overlook.

Axton turned to look at the others with lazy smile on his face. "Well, let's go to find that generator!" He said, and even tried to sound more cheerful what he really was.

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Hayden asked the seventh time in three minutes. She was totally pain in the ass.

**No, **Vincent answered irritated. Didn't she never shut up? He seriously hadn't ever met a child, and now he knew why. His creators probably hadn't wanted him to kill an innocent children, when he got too frustrated with them. He obviously wasn't going to kill that girl, even though he wanted to do that. They had Fast Traveled to Highlands and now he wanted to find someone, who would have that Echo Device thing. First he was going to locate Hayden's uncle, then he would bring her to him and then finally he would be able to find Alice and her Vault Hunter-friends. That was annoying plan, and they were progressing a little too slowly.

"Vinny?" He didn't even bothered to answer. He had learned that Hayden didn't have any good topics and she was pretty smart, but she didn't show that much. She was always talking something stupid and frustrating him. He was starting to think, that she was doing that on purpose.

"Vincent!"

**What? **He almost shouted frustrated and turned to look at the girl. What the hell did she wanted now?

"There is someone", she said and ignored his irritability. She was pointing somewhere in front of them, and he saw two lonely blacksoldiers standing next to Hyperion Bridge. They were throwing a small black ball to each other and looked pretty bored. He would brighten up their day.. By killing them.

**Stay here, **he commanded and started walking towards the blacksoldiers. He was only ten meters away from them, and they didn't even notice him, when they were focusing on that ball. It would be a perfect surprise attack.

"No way! I want to come with you!" Hayden whined and followed him.

Vincent let out an annoyed sound and turned to face that annoying girl. She walked next to him and had determined face. He somehow knew that he couldn't change her mind. **No, you will stay right here, **he answered. Hayden shook her head and was just about to say something, but suddenly her eyes widened and she looked somewhere behind him.

**What..? **He asked and turned around quickly. Just right then, he saw a black ball coming to his direction very, very fast, and it looked a lot bigger than two seconds ago. He didn't even had a time to dodge, when it hit him straight to his masked face. He heard a girly giggle next to him, and glared at Hayden. Then he took the ball from the ground, and looked at the blacksoldiers.

"Sorry, dude. That was an accident", other blacksoldier said and had a huge grin on his face.

"Yeah, totally accident", other one agreed sarcastically, and laughed cocky and annoying way.

Vincent looked down at the ball for a moment. Those two were seriously trying to piss him off and they were succeeding. **You want to play, huh? **He hadn't never actually played any games, but he had always been interested of bowling. That was that game where you try to hit those ten-pins with bowling ball, right?

**Last one who survives, is the winner, **he said, even though anyone else than Hayden couldn't hear him. He had that ball in his hands and looked at his targets. He lifted the ball to his shoulder's height and took few steps towards the blacksoldiers. Then he lowered the ball, held it with his right hand, boosted it forward and threw it to other blacksoldier's direction. The ball was absolutely too fast him to dodge it, and it flew straight through his chest. Other blacksoldier started to scream hysterically, when his friend was killed by a ball. Boxing was maybe his favorite sport. Usually there just weren't that good opponents to fight with. He would probably love to try boxing with that Brick-guy. He had heard that Slab King was an expert of punching people. Unfortunately their meeting had ended too soon, and he didn't have a change to duel with him. He walked in front of the last blacksoldier, who was trying to take his riffle from his back, but unfortunately to him, he was too slow. Vincent punched once to his face, and he could see how that fool's nose was flying away from his face, as he fell to the ground.

**I win, **he said with cold tone.

"Wow did you see his nose! That was awesome!" Hayden screamed exited.

Vincent turned to look at her. He didn't exactly know how to feel right now. That girl had just seen as he had killed those two cold-bloodedly, and she thought that was awesome? There was something wrong with her brains. **What the hell kind of environment have you grown? **He asked astonished, when she went to pick that blacksoldier's nose from the ground. She was throwing it from her left hand to right, and looked almost too cheerful.

"Well, I have lived in a skag-cave for almost a year with my uncle and Dukino", she answered and looked at the nose. "I wanna keep this..." She said and put it to her pocket. Then she knelt next to the noseless blacksoldier, and started to delve his pockets.

"Hey, I found it! Is this what we were looking for?" She asked cheerfully and had an Echo Device in her hands.

Vincent smiled a little behind his mask. **Yes, well done. You should check that other one's pockets also, **he suggested.

"Affirmative!" She walked next to the blacksoldier, who had a huge hole in his chest, and did her job. Vincent didn't even feel that frustrated anymore. Hayden wasn't that annoying all the time, and he was starting to think that she was pretty good company too. At least she didn't scare almost anything, and usually she was funny too.

"Here!" She picked another Echo Device and held them both proudly in her hands. She handed those devices to Vincent, while they started walking away from the corpses. Now he was going to locate her uncle, and then they could fast travel there where ever he was. Nearest Fast Travel was probably in Overlook, so they needed to get there.

**You can keep this**, Vincent said and handed the other device back to Hayden. Suddenly her expression changed even more cheerfully, than it already was.

"Now we can chitchat, even if you're somewhere far away!" She put it to her belt, and pranced while she was walking. She was a remarkable girl, indeed. There was something special about her, and he couldn't figure out what. Perhaps her cheerfulness was infecting somehow to him.

**Do not break it then, **he muttered and started his plan's second part. He didn't even know what he was doing, but he started to tap some codes to his device.

"Now you sound like my dad", Hayden noted and chuckled.

**What is your uncle's last name? **He needed his full name if he wanted to locate him in simpler way.

"Dunno."

He looked at the girl. Sometimes she was pretty smart, but sometimes just too stupid. **What is your father's last name then?**

"My parents are Amanda and Jerry Connor! So, there... Uh.. A guess uncle-John is Connor too..." Her expression had changed a lot and now she looked like she was puzzling with something. "They look almost like same. John is couple years older tho'"

Couple pictures popped to his mind suddenly. He remembered those two same looking men, who had been in Lynchwood with Alice. Then he remembered the picture from Hayden's home, and if he would have been in cartoon, there would have been a light bulb next to his head. Hayden's father was probably that man, who Captain had shot in the head. He looked down at her, and she looked like there wasn't anything to worry about. **Do you know where your father is? **He asked carefully.

Hayden shook her head. "I haven't seen him for a while. He, John and Angus left me and mom, when they went to meet Emma and that new girl who was with Keith. Me and mom stayed with Dukino, and only Angus and John came back. Dad probably got lost or something", she said cheerfully.

_No, he is dead,_ Vincent thought. He felt a sudden worry, and wasn't sure if he even wanted to tell anything to her. He didn't want to see her crying again... He turned to look at his Echo Device, with confused mind. They were now going under the a tunnel, so they would be in Overlook soon.

"Hey, you don't need to locate that Alice with your device", she said all the sudden.

He raised his gaze back at her and frowned. **What?**

"Isn't that her?" She said and pointed the cliff in front of them.

They were still pretty far, but he recognized them. There was a girl who had robot arm, man who looked somehow a soldier or something, some tall man with black armor and helmet, blue haired siren and Alice walking away from the Overlook.

**Hello there... **He whispered and made an evil grin.

* * *

"Okay. If that place is full of whitestrikers, we should go there like ninjas", Axton said, when they approached the Aggregate Acquisition. They were standing in front of the gate and looked at the Hyperion buildings. Then he turned to look at Zer0. "What do you suggest?"

Every time when someone was talking about acting like ninjas, they always turned to look at him, and Zer0 wondered why. "We sneak in there, without anyone noticing us and stole that generator", he answered immediately. He was an expert of sneaking, but he couldn't say the same about the others. Maya didn't make much sound usually, but rest of them were too noisy. Axton was too clumsy, when he had to bee quiet like some ninja, and usually he didn't succeed of doing that. Alice and Gaige were... Well, they were just too noisy. "Maya can come with me. Axton, you can cover us or something... And if something goes wrong, you are our closest backup."

Gaige frowned and walked in front of him. "What about me and Alice?"

"You stay as far as you can from that building." Zer0 answered calmly and pointed the stairs, which rose in front of the building.

They both glared at him. They obviously didn't want to stay there without doing anything, while Axton just looked confused as usually. "I don't like to stay behind", he muttered. But after all the three of them left Alice and Gaige in front of the gate, and walked towards the stairs. Axton stayed in front of the stairs, while Zer0 and Maya continued walking. They didn't want to cause alarm, so they decided to enter the building from backdoor. Every buildings should have backdoor, so it was a good and simple plan.

Soon, when they were in other side of that building, they both noticed a tiny steel door. There wasn't any security, but maybe there was someone inside. Zer0 opened the door silently and looked inside. The hallway was empty. He walked inside and kept the door open for Maya. They walked slowly without any sound forward the hallway. They walked for a while, until they met a corner. Zer0 glanced behind the corner, and saw as one whitestriker was standing a few meters away from them, and his back was against them. He turned to look at Maya and pointed at the corner. She somehow seemed to understand him and nodded. She stayed behind, when he walked behind the whitestriker. That white armored man didn't even had a change to realize what happened, when Zer0 pulled out his knife and slashed his throat with it. He grabbed the man before he fell to the ground, and put him down silently.

Zer0 liked this. He had to sneak in different places for living, and he was enjoying it. He was an assassin for hire, and he liked the way how he had to kill his targets; in silence, and without their even noticing what was happening. This was his life, and he was more than happy of finding that generator.

He gestured to Maya to follow him. She followed behind him, when they continued their way to the generator. There was a window in front of them, and next to it was a door. Other side of the window, they saw a huge room, metallic stairs on other side of the room and four whitestrikers. Above them were two big and thick pipes next to each other, and Zer0 saw a great assassination plan in his mind. All the whitestrikers had their backs against them, when they walked inside the room. There were two desks next to the wall, and Zer0 jumped silently on one of them and pulled himself up on the pipes. Maya hid behind the other desk, while he sneaked directly above the two of whitestrikers, who were standing next to each other. Other two were standing on the stairs talking something, and probably wouldn't notice anything. He looked behind him, down at Maya, who stick her thumb up. He like their way to cooperate. They didn't even need to speak, when other one already knew what to do. He squatted down, took two of his kunais, and threw them to their direction. They hit straight to their neck, and killed them instantly. They almost fell to the ground, but Maya Phaselocked them both at the same time, and pulled them behind her. She lowered them to the ground without making any sound.

Zer0 smiled. _Well done, Maya_, He thought proudly. Then he stood up. He couldn't stand straight, because otherwise he would hit his head to the ceiling. He walked silently above the whitestrikers, who were standing on top of the stairs. In front of the stairs was a steel door, and the generator was probably on other side of it. Next to the door was some kind of screen. Zer0 had seen that kind of devices before, so he knew that it was a fingerprint detector. He didn't have enough kunais to kill them both, so he decided to improvise. Apparently he would need a whitestriker's finger too.

He took his sword in his hand, and jumped down between of them. Other whitestriker was too surprised to react fast, and he was cut in half. Other one was faster, and was already aiming him with his rocket launcher. It wouldn't be wise to shoot him with rocket launcher, because he would probably blast himself too. Whitestriker seemed to realize that too, and decided to hit him with it. Zer0 dodged the hit and jumped invisible next to him. Man stayed still, when he swung his sword to his throat. The sword's blade was just about to touch its target, when suddenly he moved, and grabbed Zer0's wrist incredibly fast and threw him away from him. Zer0's eyes widened for a moment. Then the whitestriker turned to face him, while he was still invisible, and threw the rocket launcher to the ground. He raised his hand and gestured him to attack.

"Challenge accepted", Zer0 said and smiled behind his helmet. This was going to be more than duel.

He threw his sword to the ground and stepped forward. Whitestriker ran toward him, and tried to hit his head with, but he dodged under his hand. He dashed behind the whitestriker before he had time to turn, and kicked his back. Force of the kick made him fly forward, and he started making some weird and angry growls. He turned around, and suddenly had table in his hands, and he threw it to Zer0's direction. Zer0 jumped over the table quickly. He straightened up and saw the whitestriker, who was suddenly in front of him. He hit him hard, and threw him to hit that table with his back. Whitestriker's frist was swinging to his direction again, but this time he dodged it by jumping on the table. The frist hit the table, at the same time when Zer0 jumped forward and tackled him to the ground. They both stood up fast, but this time Zer0 was faster. Just when the whitestriker was about to hit him again, he grabbed his hand with his other hand and hit his forehead with his elbow, with a strength which would had killed him, if he wouldn't have his helmet. He fell to his knees, and looked a little groggy for a while.

"Challenge completed", Zer0 said with his monotone voice. He saw as Maya walked toward him with amused smile.

"I thought, that we had to be as silent as ninjas", she said and chuckled. She walked past him and that whitestriker to the door.

Zer0 turned to look at the whitestriker, who was standing up, and staggering. He stood in front of him, and then suddenly took his helmet off. Maya and Zer0 were both surprised of his look. He had short, lifeless-looking white hair, several scars on his face and his eyes were half white and half black. His face looked like it was unable to make any expressions.

"You won me in a fair fight." His strange and very low voice said and gave out his hand. "You have earned my salute."

Zer0 took his hand and shook it. Then the whitestriker put his helmet back, and started walk away from them. Maya jogged next to Zer0 and had just as surprised look on her face than Zer0 felt.

"Hey, what's your name?" She shouted to his back. Whitestriker turned a little and pointed his shoulder with his other hand. Zer0 hadn't even noticed anything on his shoulder earlier. There was only a number 7.

"Seven?" Maya asked, when the whitestriker left the room. She turned to look at Zer0 confused. "Do you know him?"

Zer0 shook his head slowly. He was as confused as Maya was, maybe even more. Could it be coincidence that he had met someone like Seven, right now and right there? Those other whitestrikers didn't have any number on their shoulders, and it made his situation ever worst. He followed Maya, who had already a whitestriker's finger and was opening the door. They walked inside the vault-looking room, where everything was made from steel in it, even those several shelves and loot boxes.

"Here!" Maya said excited. She took the black and a pretty big generator from the shelf, and seemed to have little difficulties to carry it.

Zer0 walked in front of her, and took the generator from her hands. It was quite heavy, but not too much to him. Then suddenly he was starting to get annoyed with some beep-sound, which he was hearing all the time. He looked around them, but couldn't see the source of that noise. Maya looked like she didn't even hear it. They were walking away from the vault.

"_Warning, warning", _a monotone female voice said from the speakers, which were hanging from the ceiling. They looked each other confused. "_Self-destruction activated. Sixty seconds to self-destruction", _voice continued.

"Fuck", They both said at the same time, and started running forward as fast as they could.

* * *

A couple of minutes earlier, Gaige and Alice were sitting on a cliff outside the Aggregate Acquisition, next to the gate. Gaige was whistling and Alice was cleaning her Hellfire. They were both too bored to sat down there with doing nothing, while others were having all the fun (except for Axton, who was sitting alone in front of the building's entrance). Alice sighed and looked at the building behind them. She didn't like that fact, that their Echo Devices weren't working. They couldn't know if the others were in a trouble and it was getting on her nerves. They didn't even know how many whitestrikers were in that building. They might had already captured their friends, and they couldn't even know it.

"I don't like this..." Gaige muttered, like she knew what Alice was thinking. She stood up, and peered at the building's direction. She looked too worried, and that was making Alice even more concerned. "I can't see Axton."

Alice stood up too and looked at the same direction. "Maybe he's hiding somewhere", she said, but there was still a hue of the concern on her voice. She was having a bad feeling about this, and she didn't like it.

"Maybe we should do something..." Gaige said quietly. She started walking away, before Alice even had a chance to say something.

She sighed and followed the Mechromancer. They walked towards the building where Maya and Zer0 had went, when Alice noticed something with corner of her eye. There was another tinier building on opposite side of the stairs and its door was wide open.

"Gaige? Was that open earlier?" She whispered.

She waited the answer for a while, but couldn't hear anything. She turned around, and looked at the point where Gaige had just stood. She wasn't next to her anymore. She looked around her, but couldn't see anyone. She swallowed nervously and looked at the open door. Somehow she know that there was something, but didn't know what. She walked inside slowly, like she scared that something would happen if she moved too quickly. There was too dark and she couldn't see anything. She put her other hand to the wall, so she wouldn't ran into anything.

"Gaige?" She whispered, but she couldn't hear any answer.

There was too dark and too quiet. She heard only her own breath, and her heart felt like it wanted to push through her chest. She wasn't nervous anymore. Now she was purely scared. Her heard bounded like hell, when she walked forward. Then she noticed the light, which flashed faintly somewhere in front of her. She started walking faster towards the light, until she entered to the big square room. Her only light source was an old lamp, which was hanging in middle of the ceiling. It was flashing and made hard to see her surroundings. Suddenly she noticed two dark spots in the corner, and walked closer to them. She recognized Gaige's pigtails, which had darkened from the blood. Axton laid next to her unconscious, and he had a long bleeding wound side of his head.

"Oh god... Gaige? Ax?" She whispered terrified and tried to wake them up. She turned Gaige to lay on her back, and her face was fully covered with blood. She swore in her mind and looked her Echo Device. Of course it wasn't working, but she was too desperate. She needed to get her friends away from that place before something bad would happen. She didn't know what had happened to them, but it had to be something bad. Five minutes ago she had been with Gaige, and now suddenly she was facing her unconscious face. Someone had knocked them out.

Then suddenly she heard footsteps behind her, and turned quickly to look at the door. Light was still blinking, but she was able to see no-one. There wasn't anyone. She stood up and walked slowly to the door. Hallway was too dark to see, but she was sure that there wasn't anyone either. She gulped and felt too nervous to be in that place anymore. She turned around, but suddenly ran into someone. She hit her head to someone's chest and let out a lout frightened yell. She backed away from the man and looked at him. Her eyes widened from horror, when she recognized the masked man in front of her.

"Crap." She took her smg and aimed the man with it, but wasn't fast enough to pull the trigger, when her gun was suddenly grabbed from her hand, and thrown to other side of the room. Then there was a quick flash and she realized that she was slammed to the wall. Her head hit the wall hard, and she fell to her knees. She felt a sharp and awful pain on back of her heard, and tried to stand up. She was too weak, and fell to the ground. Her sight was starting to be fuzzy, when she turned her head and looked at the masked man, who was standing in front of her. She didn't even have enough strength to move anymore. Fuzzy masked man squatted closer to her face, and tilted his head a little. She didn't see his face behind his mask, but she could swear that he was smiling. Then everything went black.

* * *

**Cliffhanger, you cruel son of a bitch. **


	11. Chapter 11

**One quick chapter about the reunion and that kind of stuff. Hope you guys like it. **

**-Enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 11 - Not So Happy Reunion**

"_Forty seconds to destruction"_, the female voice from speakers said, while Zer0 and Maya were running towards the exit.

They ran as fast as they could, without leaving other behind. Every time when that woman warned about the destruction, it felt like she had screamed those words to them, and they could imagine how that place was going to explode while they were still in. Seconds raced against them, when they approached the backdoor where they had come from. They reached the backdoor, while there was thirty seconds before the explosion, but now they faced a new problem; Zer0 grasped the door handle, but suddenly the door didn't open anymore. Then he tried to push it, instead of pulling, but that steel door stayed closed.

"It's locked", he said to Maya, without turning around. They didn't have much time, so they needed to figure something and fast.

Maya's expression was more than worried. She looked like world was going to end, and grabbed the door handle in panic, but nothing happened. "No, no, no, no... Not again!"

"_Twenty seconds to explosion."_

Maya raised her left hand, and attempted to Phaselock that steel door. It stayed on its position for two seconds, but then it started to shake a little. It didn't break away from the frame, like she had thought. "It's stuck!" she screamed in horror. They were going to scorch alive.

Zer0 actually didn't know what he was doing, when he dashed in front of that door, and tried to push it open. He tried to help Maya's Phaselock somehow, but it didn't quite work and, that door felt a lot heavier than earlier. He was half in that purple orb, when suddenly he was pulled through the door. His eyes widened, when he realized what had happened. He looked at his hands, but couldn't see them, so he had apparently cloaked himself in the Deception accidentally. He threw the generator to the ground and turned to look at the door, which was still on the same place, and while Maya was still in.

"_Five seconds to destruction." _Female voice said, and suddenly the door was Phaselocked into air, and Maya ran outside. Zer0 pulled her away from the building, while she put the door down in front of them, so it would protect them from explosion. They both closed their eyes, when they heard a loud and deafening explosion. Maya screamed something, but Zer0 couldn't hear anything through the noise. Flames dashed around them, and Maya felt the heath burning her skin, while Zer0's helmet and armor started to overheat. Everything ended soon, and Maya threw the hot and smoky steel door to the ground. She looked her body and sighed in relief, when only her hair had burned a little. The ground and grass were burning a little around them, but they slowly died down. She turned to look at the Assassin next to her, but her eyes widened when she couldn't see anyone. She looked around her in horror, and tried to think where he had gone.

"Zer0? She called worried and let out a frightened cry, when the answer came right next to her.

"What?" His voice asked confused. She still couldn't see him, and he obviously hadn't realized it yet.

"Zer0, I cant see you", She said astonished. "Should Deception last that long?"

Zer0 was quiet for a moment or two. He looked down to his body and hands, and realized that he was still invisible. No, Deception should not last that long. It had never lasted that long. He put his hand to his belt, and pressed his cloaking device. He waited for a while, but nothing happened, and he stayed invisible. He pressed it couple times, until he gave up and looked his hands with widened eyes. He couldn't turn his Deception off. Something had happened when he had been in Maya's Phaselock, and it had somehow damaged his cloaking device. "I can't turn it off", he said quietly and looked at Maya's worried face.

"That's bad... That's really bad", Maya noted and stood up. She looked around them, like she tried to find the answer somewhere, and then she looked at somewhere where Zer0's voice had come from. She looked now more determined. She had done something to Zer0, and now he was stuck like that. "Let's find others. Gaige might now how to fix this."

Zer0 nodded for answer, even though Maya couldn't see his nod, and took the generator from the ground. He had kind of forgot it, when he pulled Maya away from the explosion, but at least it hadn't completely destroyed from the heat. They walked to in front of the exploded building. They stood on top of the stairs for a while and looked for Axton. He wasn't there where he should have been. They looked at each other (Or Maya looked somewhere where she thought Zer0 was), and they both felt something between confusion and concern. They looked for their friends for a while, but couldn't find them. Then there was a sudden frightened scream, which came somewhere near them. They looked at the direction, and saw an open door in the tinier building. They both took their guns out and walked inside.

* * *

A few minutes ago, Vincent was leaning his back to the wall, and looking at his unconscious hostiles. Alice was sitting on a chair, and her hands were tied to chair's back. He didn't actually know what to do with those other two persons, so he had just tied them together, their backs against each other. He hadn't planned to capture them too, but it had happened and now he had to live with it. He didn't actually even cared what would happen to them.

He stood in the shadows and waited. He looked down at his Echo Device and the clock on it. There should be a minute to destruction, and Alice wasn't even awake. He had figured out that those two Vault Hunters wouldn't probably die in that explosion, but at least it would give him more time to deal with Alice. He didn't want to kill her when she was unconscious, that would just be too deceptive. He wanted his hostiles to see when he killed them, and actually he even enjoyed their fear and that they knew what was going to happen to them. It would be painful and slow, very slow death...

Suddenly he heard a soft moan from Alice's direction, and looked at her. She tried to raise her head, but it was apparently too painful for her, and her head dropped back. She was half awake, but probably wouldn't even realize if he tried to kill her right now. Vincent sighed in his mind, and looked at the clock again. Ten seconds to destruction. Alice was trying to raise her head again, but failed. That girl with robotic arm started to show signs of awakening, and moved a little. Five seconds. Four seconds. Three, two, one...

"BOOM", Hayden shouted cheerfully through the Echo Device. There was a loud explosion outside, and it shook the whole building a little. Sand floated from the ceiling, and the room was filled with a dusty veil. He heard Hayden's soft giggle, while the dust faded away.

"That was so cool!" Hayden exclaimed.

Vincent shook his head a little and made a tiny smile behind his mask. He didn't get so frustrated with that girl's enthusiasm anymore. He was now so used to it, so it sounded strange if she wasn't that cheerful every time. Hayden was waiting him in a tiny cave nearby, where she should be safe. That cave was on top of one cliff, which was next to this same area, and she had wanted to spy something above them all. Well, at least he would know if someone would enter that building. He would return to he, when he would be finished with Alice. He turned to look at Alice, and noticed that she was already awake. She looked at him, and her eyes were widened from fear. She peered at the girl who had robot arm, but unfortunately she was still unconscious. Her soldier-looking friend in other hand, was awake too. He was peering at Vincent carefully, and was probably trying to cut the rope, that was tied around him.

"Who are you?" Alice asked angrily. She tried to hide he fear, but failed miserably. Her voice was shaking, and she didn't dare to look directly at him.

He didn't answer. He even couldn't answer, but now he didn't even bother to try. He saw as the soldier-commando-what ever-guy moved a little. He obviously tried to cut that rope. He didn't care. That man was already dead if he tried to fight against him.

"What do you want from us?" She asked with shaky voice.

Vincent shook his head frustrated. He didn't want anything about those Vault Hunters. Why she was even thinking anything like that. He moved away from the shadows and walked closer to Alice. He actually didn't know what he wanted to do with her. Maybe cut her into several pieces... He had found a nice and sharp knife couple days ago. He took it from his belt, and waved it teasingly in front of the siren. It had a black handle and its blade curved in a scary way. He made an evil grin behind his mask, when Alice's eyes widened when she saw the blade. She tried to shake herself away from the chair without any success. He leaned closer to her, and smiled behind his mask. He raised the knife to height of her face, and stroke her cheek with its blade. His smile grew bigger, when Alice closed her eyes terrified.

"Don't touch her!" The commando from the ground shouted furiously.

Vincent frowned a little and glanced at the commando quickly. He thought that should he knock him out again, or let him watch when he sliced that siren in half. He made his decision and smiled again. He leaned closer to Alice, who was still keeping her eyes closed, and pressed the blade deeper to her cheek. She stirred in shock when the knife cut her cheek, and blood began to flow along it. Vincent looked at the blade and the blood on it, and felt somehow excited. Then he noticed with the commando with corner of his eye. He had stood up and was about to attack from behind. He had his own knife in his hands, when he dashed towards him. Vincent dodged the attack, by disappearing with a red flash.

Axton stood still for a moment and tried to find his target, but then something hit him from behind. He was thrown to the ground, and when he tried to stand up, something grabbed him from his collar and pulled up. He didn't have a chance to back away, when Vincent pushed his knife into his stomach.

"NO!" Alice cried, when Axton fell to the ground, and blood started to form a big pool around him. Tears started to flow on along her cheeks, and mixed with the blood. Vincent was starting to feel frustrated with this woman. He should had cut her tongue away first, and then start all the fun. She was just too noisy.

"Hey, one enemy approaching", Hayden said through his Echo Device.

Vincent looked at the dark door. **Who is it? **He asked thoughtfully. He had been right, they had survived from destruction, or at least one of them.

"That blue-haired siren."

Vincent frowned. He hadn't expected her to survive first. Where was that assassin then? He wouldn't die in explosion, would he? No, he was sure that he was still alive somewhere. Maybe he was trying to make surprise attack or something..

He walked away from the room, and left Alice alone with her dying friend and that other unconscious person. He was walking to the exit, when that blue-haired siren almost ran into him. She startled, but she didn't scream like Alice had done. This was one of those brave inhabitants of Pandora, who didn't cry for mercy. It would be almost sad to kill her. He took his other sword from his back and tilted his head little, when this siren started backing away from him. She even looked like she wasn't scared. She took her smg, and started firing it, but Vincent wasn't at the same place anymore. She turned her head to other side, and tried to find the man. Vincent appeared behind her and grabbed her hands from behind. He pushed her against the wall, and just simply took the gun from her hands.

"Are you winning?" Hayden asked suddenly.

**It is not a victory - or win, as you said -, if other party is still alive,** he noted and turned the smg's pipe to point at the siren's head. She looked at his mask, with angry expression, and raised her left hand. She was going to use her siren powers against him, but he wasn't going to allow her to do that. She grabbed her wrist with other hand, while still aiming her head, and pressed it against the wall.

"Aw, you are going to kill her? But she's so pretty", Hayden complained.

Well, she was right about that, she was quite pretty. But that didn't make him to change his mind. 'Terminate what had to be terminated' would be his new motto. Then suddenly he heard silent footsteps behind him. They were almost inaudible, and he more like sensed someone behind him. That person moved closer to him, and he had sensed him almost too late. He stepped away from the visible sword quickly, right before it had almost touched him. He took several steps backwards and looked in front of him. He was unable to see his attacker, but he knew there was someone. He looked at the ground and tried to see footprints somewhere. He noticed as the siren ran away to the room's direction, but he didn't care right now.

"Vincent?" Hayden asked and she had a lot of concern in her usually cheerful voice.

Vincent kept his eyes on the ground, but nothing was moving. Maybe his attacker was already behind him. Then he heard those silent footsteps next to him and flashed away from the sword, which was trying to cut him in half again. This was going to be more difficult like this. His attacker, who was obviously this mysterious assassin, had - as someone could say - cutting edge, and he wasn't going to beat him like this.

"What is going on?" Hayden asked nervously. Vincent wasn't answering to her, and she started get worried.

**Invisible assassin, **he answered calmly. He tried to figure out something. He had to see his target, if he wanted to fight. He processed different possibilities to make his sight better, and he chose the most secure option. He put the thermal vision on, and measured the infrared radiation of his surrounding. He noticed the purple radiation in front of him, as the Assassin was trying to attack again. He jumped away and looked at the sword, which was glowing with bright yellow color. Somehow that assassin's left hand was glowing with different color than rest of his body, and that confused him for a two nanoseconds, and then he started to focus on the fight again.

Zer0 noticed a sudden change of his opponent's fighting style, like he was suddenly able to see him somehow. Instead of running away when he attacked, now he was blocking him with his own sword. Their swords crossed, and sparkled in a dark hallway. They both backed away at the same time. Then Zer0 dashed forward. He lunged at the man, but he backed away, by jumping backwards quickly. Zer0 swung his swords over the man's masked face. Vincent crouched and ducked under the blade, just in time. It sliced the air, but nothing else, and then he disappeared, leaving only a quick red flash. He appeared behind him, tried to stab him from behind. Zer0 ducked under the sword, turned around quickly, and blocked a new swung with his sword. Suddenly Vincent thew his sword to the ground. Zer0 rushed towards him, swung his sword to his head's direction. Vincent grabbed his wrist before it reached his head. Then he took quick step towards him, and punched him to his face. Long crack appeared to Zer0's visor, but he didn't get hut more than that. Vincent realized that too. He loosened his grip, and thew the Assassin away from him. Then he dashed forward, and was about to hit him with his fist. Zer0 dodged the hit quickly, and watched as the man hit his hand through the wall. Zer0 swung his sword again, but this time Vincent was too slow to take out his other sword. He blocked the attack by raising his hand, and covering his face with it. Zer0's sword clattered against his hand, but didn't seemed to make much damage, like he had hit a metal. Zer0 took couple steps back in realization; his opponent wasn't even a human. He heard crackles coming from man's direction, and noticed that his right hand wasn't operational anymore. He dashed forward, but suddenly the man jumped away. Vincent used his surroundings to his advantage. He jumped against the wall, picked up the pace from the wall, and jumped on top of the Assassin. They both fell to the ground. Vincent straightened up and took his knife. He pressed the blade against his throat. Zer0 couldn't move, or otherwise that knife would slit his throat.

Suddenly there was a deafening scream from other side of Vincent's Echo Device, and it made him froze. **Hayden? **He called out, but no-one answered. That scream echoed in his head, and he couldn't hear anything else.

Zer0 realized that his opportunity had come. He kicked the man away from him. Then he stood up, and kicked to the man's chest as hard as he could. The force of the kick threw him against the door. The whole door shattered, and he was thrown in that room where he had left Alice. Everyone's eyes widened in shock when he fell to the ground. Zer0 walked inside, and had his sword ready.

"Kick his ass, Zer0!" Gaige screamed, when Zer0 walked closer to the man.

Vincent felt like his every bone had broken somehow. He grunted in pain, and sat down slowly. **Hayden, do you copy?** He asked, and felt a sudden concern about that girl. His Echo Device stayed quiet, when no-one answered. He waited for a moment, while those Vault Hunters gathered around him. He looked at them, without knowing what to do. He wasn't concerned about himself at all. Only thought in his mind was Hayden, and what happened to her. He looked at Alice, the woman who he had searched for so long. He didn't want anything else more than kill her, but now he had only one problem. He stared at her for a long moment, until he made his hardest decide what he had ever done. He stood up in front of everyone, and they all raised their guns at him. He wasn't there to fight anymore. He looked at Zer0. He had been the most powerful opponent what he had ever met, and he was happy that he would have that kind of memory. He looked back at the Alice once more. Then there was only red flash and he was gone.

"What the hell!" Gaige screamed in frustration.

Rest of them looked at each other in confusion. He had just left, and they hadn't expected that. Maya was squatting on the ground and tried to fix Axton. Alice and Gaige talked about something, but Zer0 wasn't focusing on that. He had fought with that man, and learned that he wasn't that type of person, who would run away from battle. He had almost defeated him, but then something had happened.

"We should go after him", Gaige suggested and looked fractious. Others nodded for agreement, but Zer0 shook his head.

"What!?" Gaige shouted frustrated. "Look what he did to Axton! We need to go there and -"

She was rudely cut by Zer0's dire scowl. She couldn't see his face, but she somehow sensed as his mood had changed suddenly. She shut her mouth and looked at her feet.

"Fine..." She muttered.

* * *

Vincent walked inside the cave, and looked around him. He couldn't see Hayden anywhere, like she had disappeared somewhere. He walked deeper in the cave, and felt more than worried. After she had screamed through his Echo, his heart had started to beat strangely, and he had even left Alice there. She was now saved, and with her friends, while he was looking for that girl. He didn't even care about Alice right now, when Hayden was in trouble. He had made her promise, so she was that girl was his responsibility, and he never broke promises. He noticed her Echo Device on the ground, and squatted in front of it. He took it from the ground, and looked it for a while. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to hear what was recorded to it. He was afraid about what had happened to Hayden. He looked at the device, while his heart was beating furiously. He let out a deep sigh, and pushed the button on its side.

"_Hello there", _the female voice started. He remembered that voice too well. He had feared the worst, and this was actually it. That voice from the recorder belonged to Captain.

"_I have something what belongs to you. You can have it back, if we make one tiny deal... You see, I want you for exchange. Come to meet me when you are ready, but don't let me wait too long. I seriously hate kids... Hey little girl, come say goodbye to your friend!"_

He heard Hayden's scared scream, and closed his eyes. He could hear as she tried to scream him for help.

"_Oh, isn't she adorable?" _Captain said and giggled. Then the recorder ended. He kept his eyes closed, while he dropped the recorder to the ground. He hadn't felt that miserable for a long time, maybe never. If he would have been there with her, he could have protected her. Captain had been there, while he had been doing something else. He had forgotten the most important thing what he had promised to himself; protect your close ones, your family. He had failed once, and now he was going to fail again.

He opened his eyes. He felt as the anger started overwhelm him, and he stood up. **I am not going to fail again, **he said to himself, and walked to the cliff's edge. He was going to find Hayden, no matter what. He looked at the Highlands from above, and raised his hand silently. He heard as the wings lung the air. Bird flew towards him, and landed to his arm. She waved her wings and then looked at Vincent.

**I need your help, **he said quietly. Bird looked at him, and tilted her head a little. She could sense that something was going on. **I need you to locate Hayden, and then return to me.**

He backed away from the edge and raised his hand again. Bird rose from his arm and turned away. She started flying away, and soon she was gone from the sight. He put his Echo Device to his belt and walked away from the cliff. He was walking away and leaving, when he heard a soft laughter behind him. He turned and saw Alice and her friends walking towards the Overlook. He was too far to them to see him. Two of them were carrying the injured commando. He looked as they disappeared somewhere and sighed. Then he looked at the sky. This was the first time when he was ready to pray for someone. That girl was a little angel, who had already changed his life in a such period of time. He felt miserable, when he couldn't hear her cheerful voice anymore. He didn't care if something would happen to him, when he was saving that girl. He didn't care if he wouldn't see Alice again. This girl was the first person, who he was ready to die for. If that would be the price, he would be ready for it. He looked at the direction where the bird had flown.

**Find her, Bloodwing**, he said quietly, and walked away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Okay I seriously need to apologize for not uploading sooner. I have been too tired, and I have horribly long days in the school. Aaaand I write my book a lot more than usually, AND I'm planning another fanfic.. So, yeah.**

**Thank you so much for reviewers and followers, and for reading this. I seriously appreciate it.**

**And now, enjoy!**

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**Chapter 12 - Capture**

Zer0 stood in front of Karima's house, while others were inside with injured Axton. There was a lot of things going on, and almost none of them made sense. But right now he had only two problems, which were seriously troubling him; He couldn't turn his cloaking device off, and how the hell they were going to get back to Sanctuary? That could be tough, since they couldn't just leave those Vault Key parts here.

He heard as door opened behind him, and Gaige walked outside. She looked around and tried to find him, but of course that was impossible when he was still invisible.

"I'm right here", he said.

She followed his voice, and walked next to him. Then she looked at the sky, and her expression looked really tired. "Sup?"

"I'm just thinking", he answered. Those Vault Key pieces had been pain in the ass for a too long. They couldn't fast travel because of them, and the couldn't even contact Angel with their Echo Devices. Gee, they couldn't even see map.

"That's so weird", Gaige said quietly.

He looked at her, and frowned behind his visor. "What?"

Gaige kept her eyes on the sky, and smiled tiredly. "You. I don't know if you have noticed, but you have changed. And I don't mean that Vault thing what is changing all of us, like it probably is tho'. I mean you're not even talking in haiku anymore. You are like... I dunno... More normal?"

Zer0 looked as she watched the sky. She looked it so closely, and it almost looked like she saw something over there. He tried to find what ever she was looking at, but couldn't see anything else than those clouds.

"Normal, huh? That doesn't sound so bad", he muttered. Actually it didn't sound bad at all. Maybe he even wanted to be normal. But unfortunately he couldn't feel like normal, not when those Vault Keys were disturbing him that much. He automatically scratched left hand's palm, without even noticing. Those freaking keys were messing with his head. He would probably go insane, if that would continue like that. Those things were messing with everything, and they couldn't even call anyone... - Wait, what? If those Vault Keys were effecting on those electronic devices when they were near them, would they start working if they were far enough? He took his Echo Recorder, which screen was pitch black, and started walking away from Karima's house.

"Hey, where are you going?" Gaige wondered, when she heard his footsteps walking away. She followed behind, but it was pretty hard when she didn't even see him.

Zer0 didn't answer. He was too absorbed with what he was doing - what ever it even was - to even hear her. He kept walking away from the Overlook without looking at anywhere else than his Echo Recorder. The screen started to show signs of living, when its map appeared on it. Unfortunately it started flashing couple times on the screen, until it disappeared again.

"God damn it!" He shouted frustrated, and continued walking. He almost fell over the cliff, when he wasn't focusing. Gaige had pulled him away from the cliff (he didn't even know how she had known that he was falling in a first place), and then he heard something coming out of his Echo Recorder. It was a female voice, who was talking to someone. He recognized the voice immediately.

"Lilith!" They both screamed in realization.

"Huh?" Came from other side.

"It's us, Gaige and Zer0!" Gaige said. She didn't even try to hide her cheeriness. Well, at that point he wouldn't either.

"Oh! Are you guys okay? We haven't heard a word about you since you were in Eridium Blight." They could hear the concern from her voice, and how Brick and Salvador were arguing about something in the background.

"Yeah, those Vault Key pieces did something, and we seriously don't know what. Fast Travels and our Echo Recorders didn't work. Now we are in the Highlands", Gaige explained.

"Okay. We are in some kind of village near the Isotope Reclamation Tower. You should come here, so we all can finally go back to Sanctuary." They heard a click when the call ended. They looked at each other (Gaige looked at Zer0's direction), and nodded, both very determined.

Now they just needed to go back to Overlook, check if Axton was able to leave, and then they could finally go home. Zer0 seriously almost missed that place. He would show his hand to Tannis, and he would hopefully get some answers. They all were tired of traveling around Pandora, and a tiny vacation would be nice. But somehow deep inside, he knew that wouldn't happen.

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Lilith and others were walking through the tiny village in Highlands. That village hadn't been there earlier. Someone had seriously started to populate Pandora again. That area looked like a poor village from some fantasy game or movie. There were only couple stores, one clothing store and pub, and several tinier houses. Everyone of them were made from cheap looking wood. It looked pretty lovely place. A bit like Gunslinger Corner, but a bit poorer and tinier. Now there wasn't any stalkers or threshers in Highlands, so children were safe at least from them. Even thought they couldn't even see any kids. There were only a few people outside, and two caravans.

They didn't know what they were going to do now, when other Vault Hunter were coming over there. Brick and Salvador wanted to rob those caravans, but Lilith didn't want to steal from civil. She wouldn't care if they would be bandits, but they probably were normal people who were transporting food and supplies. Or at least they looked like normal people. They disappeared in the pub, and only one of them was left to guard those vehicles.

Brick and Salvador muttered something, but looked a bit more excited when they decided to go to the pub too. They planned to get wasted, while Lilith and Mordecai followed behind. Lilith just went with a flow, but Mordecai didn't feel like drinking, which was obviously very weird from him. He was usually that person who was drunk all the time. His mind was wandering who knows where, and he was feeling weird. He didn't like this place somehow, like there was something wrong going on. Others probably didn't even notice anything. He looked up at the sky, when they approached the pub. Suddenly he noticed something with corner of his eye. He squinted and looked at the sky more specifically. He tried to search something that he had seen, until saw something flying above them. It was a bird. It disappeared into sky as fast as it had come, before his eyes could register it better.

"Bloodwing?" He whispered. He had seen something, but he wasn't sure what. It had looked so familiar, his old friend, who supposed to be dead. She was dead, she had to be. He couldn't believe his eyes, and somehow he even didn't. He looked at the sky, and tried to find that bird again, but unfortunately it was already gone.

"Did you say something?" Lilith asked in front of him. She turned to look at him, and raised her eyebrows.

Mordecai shook his head and sighed. "I just thought I saw something..."

He had seen something what couldn't be possible, and his eyes were lying to him. He felt a little sad. There was a tiny thought of Bloodwing to be still a live, but she couldn't be. They continued walking towards the pub, while he looked up again. There wasn't anything. He had probably just imagined everything.

"Hey, you are Vault Hunters, right?" Bartender questioned, when they entered in the pub. That pub looked pretty poor. There was only few tiny tables, and those caravanners had occupied them all. They walked in front of the bar table, and everyone except Brick sat down on the stools. He thought that those chairs wouldn't take his weight, and didn't want to pay if he would break it.

"Yeah, we are", Lilith answered, while the bartender passed a huge cups of booze to Salvador and Brick. They started drinking immediately, and drank that booze like it was only a water.

"That's cool. It's nice to have celebrities like you here."

Lilith looked at the caravanners, who were getting drunk in the corner of the pub. They all wore shabby clothes, and had same looking rifles on their back. That they had guns, was probably a good thing, because otherwise it would be pretty easy to rob them. But still something didn't seem right.

"What are they transporting?" She asked the bartender.

He glanced at the men quickly. "Oh those? They told me that they have clothes, but I dunno. They look a little suspicious."

He handed the cup of booze to her, and she took it, while still looking at the caravanners. They looked suspicious to her, too. But now there wasn't actually anything to worry right now; Zer0 and Gaige had told that they were okay, and they even had both Vault Key pieces. That masked man had left, and they probably weren't going to see him today. Everything was going great, so now she wanted to try ignore those caravanners. There was no reasons to bother her head with some pointless things.

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Vincent arrived to a tiny village in Highlands. This place looked friendly and comfortable, but he felt a little suspicious. He had goose bumps, and everyone seemed to look at him in a strange way. That could be only his imagination, if he even had one. He wandered around the village, trying to find something. He didn't actually even know what he was looking for. He just wanted some hints of Hayden's location, but he felt wasn't going to find anything like this. So, then he decided to do it like in the old days. He would find a picture of Hayden from internet, and then he would copy it. Then he could wander from door to door, and ask about her. He searched for Hayden Connor, and found some weird site, which was called Facebook. He thought for a while, and realized that he had heard about that site before. That was that annoying site what almost every teenager used every day. That young kid shouldn't even have Facebook... He found a good picture where she was smiling at the camera, and her face was shown clearly. Then he saved it to his Echo Recorder. He hadn't even known that his Echo Recorder has internet.

Now he only needed something to copy that picture onto paper. His eyes wandered around the village, and then he found a tiny and old-looking bookstore. He walked inside, and noticed immediately the photocopier on the table, next to the cashbox. He walked in front of the table, and looked at the cashier who was standing behind the table. She looked nice. She was young woman, and looked like she wasn't never going to stop that smiling. She was very pretty, too.

"Hello, how can I help you?" She asked cheerfully. Her cheeriness reminded him of Hayden. He pointed at the photocopier with his intact hand.

"Okay. It costs four dollars..."

**Four dollars? **He asked in disbelief. He looked at her for a while, like he hadn't heard what she just said. Four dollars for copying one picture? That sounded almost like stealing.

"... But I can give you a discount", She continued with a weird tone. She winked her eye, and smiled brightly. Weird woman. Now she reminded him of that bartender from Sanctuary. She stared at him in scary way, and he was starting to feel uncomfortable.

He stepped in front of the photocopier, and took out his Echo Recorder. He was alive and self-aware computer, so it wasn't hard to send that picture to the photocopier. Actually he didn't even know what he was doing usually. Everything like that happened naturally, and he wasn't sure how. His brains did things what his mind didn't quite process. Soon the machine started to tick, and Hayden's picture whirled out of the photocopier. He took the paper and held it with his both hands, when he felt as someone touching his shoulder. He turned around quickly, and saw the cashier behind him. She smiled at him with a weird way, and he didn't like it.

"Hey, I have a great idea. You don't need to pay anything, if we - you and me - would go over there in the backroom to have some fun together", she whispered.

**Excuse me?** He asked, even though he did know exactly what she meant. He backed away from the woman, when she started touching his chest, and hit the table behind him. He wasn't the most social person, so he was clearly feeling pretty uncomfortable, and he was wondering how and why someone would want to have sex with a total stranger. Well, everyone has their needs, but still this woman looked pretty desperate. But after all, he was an A.I. in male human body, so he wasn't feeling _too_ bad about this.

Then there was a sudden knock from the window. They both turned to look at the bird, who was knocking the window with her beak. Vincent's eyes widened, and he left the store without saying anything to the woman. She screamed something to his back, but he wasn't listening.

That bird, Bloodwing, was amazing. Vincent seriously hated Handsome Jack, who had been a pathetic coward. He had wanted to do something good during the war between Jack and Vault Hunters, so he had decided to free those animals from Wildlife Exploitation Preserve. Unfortunately someone had made there before him. All the trouble, would have been for nothing, if he hadn't found that weird hidden laboratory. That laboratory had been a hell of a creepy place. There were several deformed birds in huge birdcages. There were dead birds, birds without head, birds without wings or eyes, giant birds, mini birds... And then he found one tinier birdcage. Inside of it was one normal looking bird, and he learned quickly that she wasn't some ordinary bird. Her intelligent was incredible. She could understand him when even normal humans didn't, and she actually wrote her name to the sand. She always came out of nowhere when he called her, and followed him, like she wanted to pay somehow for her freedom. So, she was quite awesome.

He looked as she flew away from the window, and started flying away from him. He followed her quickly, and saw as she landed on pub's roof. Then she pointed at the one man with her beak. That man had dirty clothes, and looked like civilian, but he obviously wasn't one of them. He was standing next to the front door of the pub, and looked like he was waiting something. There were two caravans next to him, but he was alone.

Vincent looked up at Bloodwing, who was still pointing at the man. She looked so determined, so this man had to be up something. Or he had _someone_. Vincent approached the man slowly, while his hand reached over his pistol. If this man knew something about Hayden, he didn't want to let him go easily. Man didn't saw him when he walked closer, and noticed him only when he was standing directly in front of him. He looked at Vincent very dumbly, and obviously didn't know what was going on.

"What the fuck do you want?" He uttered.

Vincent kept his other hand on his pistol, while he took Hayden's picture from his pocket with another, and showed the picture to the man. Man looked at the picture, and squinted oddly. After couple seconds he realized what he was looking at, and backed away from Vincent quickly.

"You're not taking me alive!" He exclaimed.

That was everything what he needed. This man obviously had Hayden, and Vincent wanted her back. Man looked pretty scared, and that was a good thing. Don't mess with a fucking killer A.I., motherfucker. He reached over his riffle which hang on his back, but shook too much and dropped it to the ground. Before Vincent even had a time to approach him more, he suddenly ran inside the pub. The door swung wide open, and he could see everyone who were inside, including those Vault Hunters. His eyes locked to the red-haired siren, who looked at him with widened eyes. He even saw as her lips shaped like she was saying '_What the fuck'_. There were maybe seven caravanners, two civilians - bartender and some drunk old guy - , and Vault Hunters. Almost every one of them started shooting at him. He backed away from the door and took cover behind the wall.

"Kill him, boys!" One of the caravanners shouted.

That order wasn't for Lilith and others, but they were immediately on the action. Lilith took her smg, and pointed at the open door. Those caravanners were shooting and spending their bullets like maniacs. Maybe they thought that their bullets would go through the wall, and somehow even hit the target. She would want to see that. Before even had a chance do anything, she saw as Brick ran outside, and through the bullet rain. Rest of them followed, and all the bullets bounced back when they hit their shields. Soon everyone were outside the pub, and trying to shoot at the incredibly fast masked man. It looked like he just dodged all of them, or those bullets just bounced back. Or then he just didn't care of the pain... If he even felt anything. Brick was trying to run over and hit him, but he was too quick. Right now everything seemed like chaos, and those caravanners even started to shoot each others.

There was a loud a humming sound, and Vincent turned around to see as the both of the caravans had started to drive away. He ran after them, but was soon stopped by something invisible that tackled him to the ground. He stood up quickly and noticed the familiar, almost unheard footsteps.

**I don't have time for this! **He shouted frustrated. He looked at the caravans, that were now almost disappearing from the sight. He ignored the assassin, and sprinted after those two caravans. He didn't even remember when he had run that fast. He reached the last caravan, and jumped on top of it. There were tiny windows on the both side's of the vehicle, and he leaned over the edge to see what was inside. There was nothing. It was just full of nothingness. He let out an angry roar, and stood up. He turned to look at that other caravan, which was few feet away. He ran along the caravan, and jumped on the other vehicle. He squatted, and was going to crash that roof, when he saw a purple blast with corner of his eye. He raised his head, just in time to see that red-haired siren standing about twenty feet away in front of the caravan, and the electric rocket that she had just shot, flying towards him incredibly fast. It hit him before even had a chance to dodge it. He was dropped from the caravan and fell to the ground.

Lilith sighed and lowered her rocket launcher, while approaching his still body. She walked in front of him, tensed of the thought that he would suddenly jump up, and attack. But he didn't. He stayed on a ground motionless, without showing any sight of being alive.

"Is he... Is he dead?" Gaige, who had appeared out of nowhere, asked quietly.

That was the second thought, which was annoyingly floating in her mind. She hadn't intended to kill him, and she kind of hoped he was still alive. Well, how he even could be? She had just shot him once with her rocket launcher, so he couldn't be dead that easily.

"No, I think he's just offline", Zer0's voice came next to her.

She looked at the direction, but couldn't see him, so he had to be still in Deception. _Wait, what? _Had he just said offline? What that supposed to mean? Humans can't be offline? That would sound too stupid to him to say. He wouldn't say anything like that about humans. Did he mean that this masked creepy guy wasn't human? What the fuck? And what that offline means? Is he dead or not?

"What?" She let out puzzled. "Do you mean he's a robot or something?"

"Well..." He started. He was (maybe) squatting next to the masked guy's motionless body. "He's definitely not a human... But he has a pulse. At least he's not dead."

Lilith sighed in relief, and didn't quite even know why. It should be a good thing, if he would be dead... No it would be great thing. He couldn't be creeping the hell out of her and others.

"What do we do with him now?" Gaige asked.

That was a brilliant question, and Lilith didn't know what to answer. She was the leader of Crimson Raiders, so she should know what to do in these type of situations. But unfortunately that guy had been a huge pain in the ass since they had met him first time, and he was making her feel pretty uncomfortable.

"Maybe we should take him to Sanctuary", Axton suggested. That idea would probably been most stupidest idea, if he hadn't added: "We could lock him somewhere and interrogate him. Maybe he knows something about Captain or those Vaults." Axton and others had all appeared out of nowhere, right after that madness has started. He had been hurt, but he was still capable to walk.

Gaige snorted loudly enough to everyone to hear her. "And why do you think that he would tell anything to _us_?" That was another great questions. Well, they didn't know, but it was worth to try. What bad could even happen? Oh yeah, he could escape, and kill everyone...

"Well, we have Zer0, don't we?" Axton asked and grinned.

"Huh?" Their lovely, and very invisible assassin's voice came from the same spot.

"If he don't talk, _you_ are going to interrogate him on your own way. You know what I mean?" Axton said, and his grin widened even more.

"You are talking about torturing him?" Lilith asked suspiciously. She didn't like that idea at all, no matter who they were going to interrogate. Okay, maybe she would had tortured Jack if she would had a chance, but who wouldn't? Axton made a sound which told her that she had been right.

"Why everyone thinks that I'm some kind of sadistic maniac, who likes to torture people?" Zer0 muttered.

"Because you look like one", Axton answered immediately. Gaige and Salvador gave a laugh at that point, and Lilith and others just rolled their eyes.

"How are we gonna get back to Sanctuary?" Maya asked.

Lilith turned to look at the flying city. They couldn't use Fast Travel because of those Vault Key parts, so there had to be some other way. She grinned, as the idea popped in her head. "I think we should bring Sanctuary to us", she said and started walking away.

Others looked at each other in wonder, while she was talking to Scooter with her Echo Device. Then she walked back, and they all looked as the flying city started to fall slowly from the sky. It grew bigger and bigger, and came closer in every second. Soon the ground started to shake, and there was a loud thud, as Sanctuary landed in the Highlands.

"Let's go home", Lilith said with a proud smile.

* * *

"Stupid Vault Hunters", a rough voice said. That voice belonged the blacksoldier who was sitting inside the caravan. He didn't wear his suit or helmet, so he didn't look like blacksoldier. But he was. All those caravanners were. They were only disguised as civilians, so they could fool people like Vault Hunters. He started laughing with other soldier who was sitting next to him.

"He was so close", he said with a grin. They both looked at the girl, who was sitting in front of them. She was crying quietly. Her blonde hair looked like one big mess, and her face and clothes were dirty. "And then they ruined everything."

Hayden felt like she just wanted to crawl in the corner and cry. She was scared, and wanted to go home. She looked outside the window, and noticed that they were far away from Vincent now. Her eyes hurt from the crying. Everything felt like a nightmare right now. She closed her eyes, in a hope that everything would just go away. But it didn't.

"Hey, don't cry, girl." One of the blacksoldiers said. He almost sounded sorry, and his expression showed a tiny signs of pity. "Captain doesn't like when someone cries. You are gonna spend a lot of time with her, so you should know that."

After that, all the pity disappeared and they both started laughing again. Hayden closed her eyes again, wishing that someone would help her. Vincent was going to find her, she was sure of that. He was going to save her no matter what. Now she just needed to wait.

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**Yeah, sometimes heroes are the stupidest. - Next chapter coming out soon (At least a lot sooner than this came. Sorry for that, seriously) **


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